Investing Time

I often think as I look at my dogs resting, sprawled out on their dog bed, without a care in the world, "Wouldn't it be nice to live with so little worries or responsibilities?"  The only things my dogs do all day is sleep, play, snuggle, eat, and go to the bathroom. They don't have jobs, don't worry about what they will eat, what they will do. They don't have big, important dreams they are working hard to achieve. They don't have responsibilities to tend to, people to care for, or things to pay for. They don't contemplate things like, "What do I want to do with my life? What am I good at? What are my gifts? How do I compare with others around me?" They just live.

It can be tempting to be envious of this lifestyle. Of course it sounds amazing to be able to sit around and nap, have fun and let others meet all of my needs all day. But as image-bearers of our Creator, we have a higher calling than to just exist. We were created to reflect God's character to the world. This is not a passive calling, but one that requires us to be intentional about achieving. It can be so easy to float through life on auto pilot, and go through our daily routines without a second thought about how we spend our time.  In every season of life, it feels as if we don't have enough time. No matter what our lives look like, we will always find something to fill our minutes. The challenge is choosing to be intentional about using our minutes to bring glory to God and to serve others in a way that draws them closer to Jesus.  This won't happen by accident. Lives are not changed automatically. If we want to live the life God created us to live and calls us to, if we want to see lives changed, if we want our lives to impact the world for eternity, we're going to have to invest our time rather than pass the time.


The lazy life of a dog may seem to be an enviable one, but if we were to replicate this lifestyle as people, we would be vastly unfulfilled, and would be wasting the most precious, most non-renewable resource in the world: Time. My prayer is that I would learn to intentionally invest every minute of my day to serve Christ, and not miss opportunities He sends my way to be the reflection of His image to others.

Rest

The majority of the pictures we take of our dogs are of them sleeping! They look so sweet when they cuddle up together and fall asleep! They need a lot of rest and take a lot of naps during the day. Their little bodies are just not strong enough to stay active all day long.

Our bodies aren't strong either. We are asleep for 1/3 of our lives! In order to continue to live, we must stop and be completely still and mentally unengaged for 8 hours every day. Compared to God, we are so weak. God is completely in control and in full knowledge of everything going on in the world all the time, and He never has to rest. He is so very big, strong, great and mighty. We are so small, weak and insignificant. But He loves us each so very much, and cares about each individual person that He creates, and all the little details of each of our lives. How very trustworthy He is to meet all of our needs. There's nothing He can't handle. In that case, I think I'll go take a nap!

This can't be comfortable

He thinks he's a person