Make the Most of Every Opportunity

(I took this picture of Jeksa yesterday. It was too good to not share. It reminds me of a school photo. This is almost 13 years old and gets more beautiful each day.)

My mom gave me a prayer journal 13 years ago (Christmas of 2002), I was a junior in high school. She spent so much time on this journal; she wrote me a letter at the beginning of it and chose quotes and scripture to put on all of the pages of the notebook. I was thankful for it and thought it was really cool then, but now it is such a gift and I am so thankful for the Mom that God gave me. After all these years I am finally utilizing it for the purpose that she intended. Before, I did not want to write in it because I did not want to write the wrong thing or mess up the work that she did, but that was not what my mom wanted when she gave it to me. She wanted me to write my thoughts, prayers, fears, insights, and inspirations in it. The first page had a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Psalm 90:12. Both of which are about spending your days wisely because they are limited.

Moses asks God to help us number our days in Psalm 90:12 so we can have a heart of wisdom. Where does the learning take place if we slide on by through life and not make the most of all of our God-given opportunities to learn and to serve others. We think, "Oh, I'm only    (fill in the blank with your age)   , I have plenty of time to serve others and get to know God". In reality, God gave us this life and we need to use this time wisely. We can't get any of the time back that we spend wasting on earthly things (e.g. pinterest, TV, youtube, etc.). Don't get me wrong, I am all about some "me" time, decompressing, getting ideas from pinterest, and taking care of myself, but I know I can improve in this area of using my time better. How do you want to spend your time? Engaging in things of this world to pleasure yourself or getting to know God and serving others? I choose the latter (getting to know God and serving His Kingdom). I need to pray and ask God for wisdom on how to do that.

God spoke to me this morning and told me that I am blessed to be a blessing (2 Corinthians 9:8) and I need to utilize my time with blessing others with my current blessings of youth, enthusiasm, acceptance, and mobility. Galatians 6:10 says "therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers." We have got to get out there and serve! My time is so precious to me and I am usually not willing to compromise "me" time to serve others. That mindset of mine needs to change, and God says so, just read the scripture I just quoted. Ephesians 5:15-17 instructs me to take advantage of every opportunity that comes my way and to be careful of how I live.

God gave us all unique abilities for us to best serve the Kingdom of God, so our desires for serving are all going to look different (Ephesians 2:10), but for me, right now, I have a heart for serving the people in my immediate community. I live in an affluent community so some people think that we are all good and we do not need to serve this community, that we need to reach out to other communities or other countries to help there. That is fine, but for me, God is telling me that there are people in my community that I need to serve.

God put some ideas on my heart of ways that I can serve my immediate community. I could work with teenage girls as a mentor to help them understand the impact of their decisions and how a relationship with Jesus can change their life. I live in a neighborhood with elderly people, I could get to know them and offer help to them. I have an older friend who goes to my church that I could spend more time with and help with her computer issues she is having. I know if I take advantage of these opportunities God will not only bless these people with my help, but they will also make a huge impact on me and be a blessing to me!

What is it that God is putting on your heart to do? Do you already serve your community, if so, what is it that you do and how has it impacted your life? Please share!