“I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows).” John 10:10

¹³ But they soon forgot what he had done. . . Psalm 106:13

Yesterday, I had lunch with Pastor Larry Bettencourt, a long time mentor and friend. He was pouring into my life about some things and he said this statement (which probably seemed insignificant to him), but that God used to blow me away!

He said, “Bubba, you have and have had a great life.”

He was saying that because I’m so focused on a hundred different things and on going a hundred different places. It’s like I’m convinced that if I’ll just achieve a little more, do more, accomplish more, be more that I’ll finally be satisfied with my life and be content.

When he said that, I knew it was true… I really have had an amazing life. However, I haven’t been taking time to enjoy life, enjoy the experiences, enjoy everything God has done and is doing in my life. I’ve been doing, doing, doing, striving, striving, striving so much that it’s hard for me to slow down and enjoy anything.

God has been faithful in the past and He’ll be faithful in the future and He wants me (and you) to enjoy our lives and enjoy the journey. Everything we’re trying to achieve and the places we’re trying to get to will both be impossible without God, and even if we achieved some of it and went to some of the places we want to in life, we’ll end up looking back and realizing we didn’t enjoy any of it.

So I’m making a decision from here on out… I’m going to choose to enjoy life, enjoy the journey and recognize and thank God for a great life. I’m going to thank Him for a great life so far and trust Him and thank Him for a great future.

As I slow down and look at my life… it truly is a great life and I have God to thank for that. I’ll never forget it!  I’m so thankful He reminded me of this truth…

So how about you? Do you have a great life? Are you thankful for everything God has done in your life?

I shared these with our summer of service students yesterday and I thought it’s something that might interest you.  They are from a book by Charles Sykes entitled “Dumbing Down our Kids”. Definitely hits home… Let me know what you think.

Rule 1: Life is not fair -- get used to it!

Rule 2: The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.

Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.

Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping -- they called it opportunity.

Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you are. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.

Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.

Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

This is another book I probably would have never read if I wasn’t a part of Thomas Nelson’s Books for Bloggers Program. This book is written by Richard Stearns, the president of World Vision.  Let me start off by saying that this should be required reading if you’re breathing! This would make a great book for small group curriculum, to go through with friends, and family. It conveniently has a study guide with questions for each chapter in the back of the book.

This book will open your eyes to so many different issues that need addressed around the globe and really challenge you to something about it. Here were some of my highlights:

• Are you willing to be open to God’s will for your life?
• When we say that we want to be His disciple, yet attach a list of conditions, Jesus refuses to accept our terms. His terms involve unconditional surrender.
• It takes transformed people to transform the world.
• If Christ is Lord, then nothing He asked us to do is optional. his teaching become the operating system of our lives.
• It’s not what you believe that counts; it’s what you believe enough to do.

• What does God expect of you? Everything.
• Our compassion for others seems to be directly correlated to whether people are close to us socially, emotionally, culturally, ethnically, economically, or geographically.
• Don’t fail to do something just because you can’t do everything
• We must not, as Christians, stick our heads in the sand and pretend that the world is doing just fine because we are.
• We must never see poverty or justice as “issues” that need solutions; rather we must see the human beings at the heart of those issues as people who need and deserve our love and respect.
• A church that lives within its four walls is no church at all.
• It would take a little over 1% of income of the American Christians to life the poorest one billion people in the world out of extreme poverty.
• God never asks us to give what we do not have . . . But He cannot use what we will not give.
• We, as Christians can look at our broken world, shrug our shoulders and say, “That’s just the way things are.” Or we can instead embrace a vision of what could be – if we’d pitch in.
  

As I said before this is a must read and it will open your eyes and your heart to start to see the world as God does, and hopefully it will launch you into action to change this world.

Final Grade: A+      Buy it here!