Time To Come Alive

"Don't ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs are people who have come alive." Howard Washington Thurman

What makes you come alive? What makes your soul sing at just the thought? Find time to do it. Your heart and soul will thank you in ways you can’t imagine. This could be a small thing, one thing or many things. Whatever it is, perhaps knowing this is a signal that you need to consider a change in your life direction, or that you should seriously contemplate the idea of a career change.

If you don’t know what brings you joy, it may be because you haven’t met yourself. If you don’t know who you are, who you really are, how will you every find your joy? How will you know your joy if it walked up and knocked on your life’s door?

One way to do this is to acquire a journal. It could anything from a simple spiral-bound tablet to a fancy leather bound plank book. Need ideas to get started? Describe your perfect day from the moment you wake up until you lay your head down at night. Be as detailed as possible and include colors, smells, sounds, and all the sensory impressions you can think of. Take as many pages as you need to finish this task

Here are ten questions to salt the mine and help get you started. For each question, write out why you answered the way you did. This is an important part of this step.
1. What is your favorite color?
2. What is your favorite time of year?
3. Do you like the beach, mountains, desert, high country, coast, prairie, or what?
4. Do you have many friends or just a few close friends?
5. How do you feel about each of your family members? Pick at least one word to describe each of your family relationship. Write one paragraph about each person.
6. Are you a morning person? Or do you come alive at night-time?
7. What is one item you can’t live without daily?
8. What makes you cry?
9. What makes you laugh?
10. How do you want to be remembered?

These are just a few questions to get you going. Think of more. I know it will take time to walk through the process to find the value of you, but it is important! Don’t just sleep walk through your life. Get to know yourself. Voltaire said it so clearly: An unexamined life is not worth living.

Road to Hope

Jeremiah 29:11-13 (NIV) is a very familiar passage to most Christians: For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

Linking the words I know to our future seems like an oxymoron until you consider who is saying, they “know.” Our Lord God states unequivocally that He alone knows. Not only does He know, but He has plans. Not for just an ordinary what-to-do-today agenda, but He has a long-term goal to flourish, thrive, prosper and grow you, And on top of all that, you get hope. Hope. I could go a long time on just hope alone.

It seems sometimes that we vacillate between conceit and despair, thinking we know it all, only to ultimately realize we don’t know anything. Then God comes into our lives. When we met God for the first time He was already completely aware of everything that was, is, and will be relating to us, past, present and future. He is the Source, and in His hands He holds the plans He has for us. We may only see the circumstances swirling around us and with that view, there are times when despair sets in; but God sees the whole picture.

Knowing our future as He does, His desire is for us to come to Him and talk about the unique plan He has for our life. The word used in the verse is “seek.” Seek means to search, set out for, and request. Is He hiding? No, the point is that while He is always available to us, our charge is to be aware of our need, to set out and seek for Him, to turn to Him, and to turn nowhere and to no one else. God wants us to seek after Him and as we find Him, He has given us a clear and explicit promise that He will be found. Run to Him and discover all the great plans He already has for you!