What are you doing with your time?

"We all sorely complain of the shortness of time, and yet have much more than we know what to do with. Our lives are either spent in doing nothing at all, or in doing nothing to the purpose, or in doing nothing that we ought to do. We are always complaining that our days are few, and acting as though there would be no end of them."

I made this list of things I'm hoping to get accomplished before my birthday. Very big things are on that list, it's kind of like a New Years resolution....we all know how those go. ;) Anyways, I started thinking about all the time I've wasted each and every day. How much people get accomplished when they have a drive behind their actions....how motivated people can get when they're on fire for the Lord. Many other reasons people get things accomplished, but those are a few.

I think about all those times I think to myself "Goodness, I'm bored!" What could I have done in those minutes...sometimes hours...? I could have finished all these books I've gotten a fourth of the way through. I could have my school done, I could have written letters, or simply prayed for awhile. My newest goal is to be productive. To not count my days, but make my days count. To make God look down and smile, knowing I'm at least attempting to honor Him with the time He's given me.

I have so many days behind me, Lord willing I will have many ahead of me as well, but each day needs to be lived to it's fullest. Not just moseying along going with the flow, or as Matthew West would say "I don't want to go through the motions." That is one of Satan's best weapons. To make us comfortable in our life so much, that we feel relaxed and no desire to get up and do anything.

We wish for that day when we get to hang out with friends, get that ice cream cone, finish our jobs so we can play. When we start putting our head into what we "wish" the future would be like, we don't put all of our attention on our jobs at hand. We don't do tasks God has given us with our whole heart. We do them with as little work as possible, just doing enough to get by.

My dad is always telling us kids when we're dong a job, whether it's cleaning a room, mowing the yard, or washing the car..."Do everything as if it were unto the Lord."

So the question is, are we doing everything we do, in a way that would please God? In a way that we would be doing it if God were standing right beside us. In a way, that we would do it FOR God.