Re-evaluating!

Life has no guarantees! We need to live life to its fullest while we can. This rings so true to me this week when I heard some devastating news from a friend. I do believe our lives are in God’s hands. He knows the end of our story. However, what can we do to live our lives in a way that is pleasing to the Lord, and one with meaning?
This week I received an email for World Vision ACT:S summer bucket list. Though this group is geared towards college students, I began advocating with them a couple of years ago. They list ideas to get involved in a cause or issue that you are passionate about. One of the suggestions is to make your own “bucket list”. You’ve seen that going around, things you want to do or accomplish in your lifetime. Well, I never thought of doing that before, making a list that is, but maybe I will. It’s interesting that I got this news and bucket list on the same day. Or is it?
For the past few months I’ve been re-evaluating my life. Why? Well, for the past four years (the time we’ve been living in Tennessee), I feel like I’ve wasted a lot of time. I haven’t been doing any ministry except for a couple of small projects. I’ve tried to get involved with homeschoolers, to no avail. So, I’ve wondered, “Why am I even here?”.
Since reading and studying David Platt’s book, Radical, and participating in World Vision’s ACT:S ReLentless during April, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. Thinking about what? Thinking about what I’m doing versus what I should be doing with my life.
I don’t believe that I was put on this earth to sit idly by while thousands of children die each day due to preventable diseases and millions are going to spend eternity in hell because they have never heard about Jesus.
If God didn’t care about orphans, widows, the poor and needy, and the oppressed, why did He bother putting around 2,000 verses in the Bible on those topics? Why should we care? Why should I care? Because God does!
So what will I do with what I’ve heard, learned, read, studied? Well, I believe I should go to God in prayer and ask Him what I can be doing, what I should be doing.
I keep thinking back to a time when I wondered about the children in developing nations who don’t have the opportunity for an education--perhaps they can’t pay for school fees, can’t buy a uniform, books or even a pair of shoes. Perhaps, they must work, or beg, to eat each day. Maybe they are caring for their siblings while parents work. Then, there is a chance that some of these children don’t have parents so they become the parent and must forgo school. Why do they have so little and we have so much? Could it be that God blessed us so that we could bless others? This is still an interest of mine and has been for several years.
Father, help me to be a blessing to someone.