Entry #1

Yesterday, I started on a new TAWG journal. I just filled up the one I had been writing it, which is always fun because I keep these in a place where I can go back and look through them time and time again. It's always encouraging & often challenging to look back and revisit things that I've walked through or been challenged by in the past.

So, for the first entry of my new journal, I decided to rewrite an entry from one of my previous journals...not the entire thing...just a sentence that is as true today as it was when I first wrote it.

"The greatest gift you can give to this world is your own intimacy with Christ."

If there's one thing I need to be reminded of time and time again, it's that this life is not about me. If my pursuit is not after the person of Jesus Christ, then I've missed it!

I can be involved in a lot of incredible stuff: small group, Bible study, service projects, prayer group, attend church twice a week. But if I'm not personally pursuing Jesus on my own- none of that stuff means anything at all...it suddenly just becomes "stuff"...just one more thing on my schedule to do.

Jesus laid out what this life is to be all about in some of my favorite scriptures.
"SEEK FIRST His kingdom and His righteouness..." (Matthew 6:33)
"If YOU SEEK ME with all your heart, you will find me...I will be found by you..." (Jeremiah 29:13,14)

There are two words God has continued to bring to my mind through circumstances, scripture, conversations, etc. And when they start to show up in everything you do...you get the idea that you should probably pay attention to them! Those two words: Perspective and Urgency. I've mentioned them before - they were a major theme coming off my last minute Ireland trip. Here's what I wrote in my journal concerning them...

Perspective...

• God is God and I am not
• my relationship with Jesus Christ must come first
• everything I do should be for His glory (Col. 3:17)
• I am where I am for such a time as this

Urgency...

• what am I putting down for others to pick up?
• teach these truths to those who can pass them on (2 Tim. 2:2)
• one life, one chance
• "you don't have to climb that mountain, there's another way" (more to come on this one)

Just some stuff I'm thinking through as I look ahead to what I desire for this next year to be. More to come...