This past weekend I taught a message in our HOLY, WOW series on Heaven and as I prepared the message, the prep was also doing a deep work in me, causing me to be so very mindful of the brevity of life and the foreverness of eternity. What I do every single moment of every single day is so vitally important. Psalm 90:12 instructs us to ask God to ‘teach us to number our days that we would live with a heart of wisdom’.
The only thing we can take to eternity with us is relationships – our money, homes, and cars, etc. will all be left behind. I believe that it is wise to regularly take stock of our lives and honestly wrestle with answering the question ‘Who or what gets the best and the most of our time – are we focused on being heavenly minded or earthly minded.?’
I believe a rich and beautiful life will never be measured what we have accumulated, but by what we have sown and invested into the lives of people. Everything that leaves our hands and lives will enter our future. I believe there is no greater place to invest our lives than into relationships with a God-centered purpose attached to them.
I heard a great pastor teach that 90% of your destiny is in others and only 10% is in you. Based on my personal experience, I believe this is so true, so I want to encourage you to pay close attention to the divine God-encounters coming your way. They may look very ordinary, but they have supernatural potential to change your world, their world, and the world.
This morning I read through the book of Ruth and I marvelled once again at the handprint of God all over this story. She was an ‘outsider’ and had suffered such loss after the death of her husband and found herself in a truly difficult place with an unknown future looming before her. Rather than go back to her home country of Moab, she chose to follow her mother-in-law and her God, and found herself written into the most beautiful story of redemption, love, and provision through relationships. God hadn’t forgotten Ruth, but had a beautiful plan to write her story into the lineage of Jesus.
Pay close attention to the story that God is writing over your life.
Here’s a few ways that God ordained friendships and relationships have been brought into my life and have helped shape my future and who I have become.
Open your eyes – Live your life with a sense of expectancy. Often, we can’t see the opportunities for new relationships because our heads are down, so focused on the immediate stuff in front of us that we disregard the God-invitations that He is presenting to us to engage in.
Open your heart. It’s hard to hug someone who lives their life with their ‘arms crossed’. Many of us have been hurt in relationships so we are unapproachable – we are closed off and standoffish and so many God-opportunities can be lost or delayed. We have been hurt in relationships, but we are also healed in relationships, so let’s open our hearts.
Open your mouth. Speak words that invite and engage others into your life. Go first and start the conversation.
“No one else can speak the words on your lips. Drench yourself in words unspoken. Live your life with arms wide open. Today is where your book begins. The rest is still unwritten.” (Natasha Bedingfield, Unwritten)
Most importantly - PRAY. Prayer opens our hearts to engage God’s heart toward others. Prayer heightens our spirits to be in tune and engaged to hear God’s voice speaking and His Spirit nudging us to action.
Life is to be fully lived and enjoyed, not simply endured. True joy comes from knowing our days are filled with living for God’s higher purpose and fulfilling God’s dreams for our lives and relationships.
Who has come into your life recently or many years ago that is clearly a God connection?
Which friends and relationships are you truly thankful for today? Be sure to let them know.
“Each friend represents a world in us, a world not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.” Anais Nin.
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR:
Helen is one of our founding and teaching pastors here at Relate. She is warm, generous and incredibly passionate about the local, and global Church. She and her husband, John, travel and minister globally, mentoring pastors and sharing their life message with churches and organizations. She is full of wisdom and joy, and the love she sews into everyone she encounters is such a gift!
