Living in light of Eternity

Lately God has been impressed on my heart this idea of "Living in light of Eternity." I've been challenged to look at what this means on a daily basis, and its not fun. haha I mean it is, but you understand what I mean, its a daily dying to self, and (for me) that is not fun. I like pleasing myself if I'm completely honest. I like convenient, I like easy, I like cookie cutter. But as I read through scripture and let scripture read me, dying to self, personal convenience, easy, and cookie cutter is not how Jesus told us to live. At all. That is when I start to get the sweats. Sweaty palms, racing heart, the jitters.....and I say Lord, I'm good. Life is good. I have my family of four and we are good! But did he call me to just have this perfect cookie cutter life? And is he calling me to stay there....and if I'm being honest the answer is no. EVENThough, I would love to say yes. :)
As I read through the word, I got to thinking about how we are just passing through this life. This is not the end all be  all place to plant and take root life, if we are followers of Christ. We are passing through, only. God in all his graciousness allowed us to be here on earth at this very time and season we are here, and his heart and his desire is for us to impact His Kingdom. Not to strive for the perfect family of four, white picket fence, and perfect career. We are passing through. The point is to bring people with us as we pass through.
I have been reading 1st & 2nd Timothy a lot lately and I just love the encouragement Paul gives to Timothy. He is a source of strength and encouragement for him. All throughout these books Paul is helping Timothy and paved all through out his letter there is one theme...living in light of eternity. Here are some things I've been learning:

1 Timothy 1:15-17 Paul remembers what God did for him, remembers where he came from, and knows where he is going...he is living in light of eternity, and does not forget that he is a sinner saved by grace.

1 Timothy 4:7-8 Paul says to train yourself to be Godly. What sound advice! because how hard is it to be Godly? Its very hard, so he tells timothy to TRAIN yourself. Its not going to come natural, you have to work at it. He also knew this eternal mindset was not a natural response either....we have to train ourselves to have it.

2 Timothy 2:22-25 Paul is writing timothy with Jesus in mind as his example. All throughout the Gospels we see Jesus' life and we see he took every opportunity to teach his disciples about the Kingdom of God, and whatever he taught them, He lived before them! So in order to continue in this eternal mindset, we need to live out what we believe. Live out what the Bible tells us to. That is living in light of eternity!

2 Timothy 4:3-8 No matter how hard this life gets...keep going! Keep your eyes on the goal...eternity. Keeping our eyes on what really matters, what we are here for, what impact we are supposed to have for HIS Kingdom is why we live in light of eternity, and can one day join Paul in saying, "I have fought the good fight! I have finished the race! and I have kept the faith!"

Joseph M. Stowell, Pastor for the Moody Church in Chicago wrote, "When we believe the reality of the other side, we start behaving differently on this side. This is what drove the disciples our into their world - they had seen firsthand the reality of the other side."

November!

Oh little neglected blog of mine I do apologize for not coming to see you in...well over two months! That might be a record!
I knew coming into this fall season it was going to get batty around here, and well its been batty that's for sure! We are in a slow down season so now hopefully I will be able to get a few posts done before another month or two passes!

So I went through the Made for More study, and I totally forgot to get the girls to do an evaluation of what they liked/didn't like, and so I have no clue how it went for them. haha opps. There was some really good conversations and a few stories of girls being impacted, and so the rest is up to God and what He wants to do in them. Which I am totally ok with! It was good to do it with high school students. It was a little different taking peers through it, but with the students I had to think a little differently and tweak some things, but all in all I think it went well! Yay God!

Then Jeremy went to Nepal and my parents came to visit us. It was nice to see them, and I was super thankful for the extra help! Especially since I have to leave work at 5:40 each morning! It was so nice that they were here, super thankful!!

Then there was Halloween! My a lot of time has passed!! It was really fun this year because Ella was definitely into it. She dressed up as Princess Sophia, and she felt like a Princess too, it was cute! We went trick or treating around a friends neighborhood.  By the end of the night as she was running back to me from getting a peice of candy and screaming, "MOM I did it!! I said Trick or Treat, and I said THANK YOU!!!" haha She was super proud of herself, and I was very proud of her too! Its a neat journey watching these kids grow! :)
Miss Alivia was a Strawberry. Hahahaha the costume was from my parents and it was adorable!! I'm going to miss this toddler stage! She is just so darn cute, and I think I kiss her face hundreds of times in a day! She is such a joy and a crowd stopper! As people came up to get candy everyone "AWWWW Look at her! So adorable!!" haha it was really cute. Super thankful to get these seasons with my kiddos. What a gift they are.

God and I are doing great! Lots of things have been rattling around in my brain, and I will do another post on that later, but now its
to Thanksgiving fun! I was seeing so many people posting stuff on Christmas and it hit me! We get to decorate in THREE weeks!! WOOHOO My rule in my house is you don't decorate for Christmas until the day after Thanksgiving. I made this rule because if you decorate before then you just have two Christmas's basically! haha But, I may have rearranged my furniture to get ready for the tree already! haha :)
What about you, what is your Christmas decorating tradition?