Life Happens

In the end, what is it going to matter?

At this moment...

• Unsold garage sale items in my living room debate amongst themselves - who will go to the thrift store and who is destined for the trash bag?
• Stacks of folded clothes compete in my laundry room to see who can grow the tallest without tipping over.
• My school room is a jigsaw puzzle waiting for me to put it back together before a new school year starts in the fall.
• Books and papers on my desk rearrange themselves during the night so they are never in the same place where I thought I left them.

In short, my house is a mess. My house is almost always in some level of disarray. While cleaning my bathroom one day, I thought, "My house may be a mess but that doesn't mean I'm a messy person." On my own, I finish a job once I start it. I have a place for everything and everything in its place. I organize and alphabetize so I know where items are.

However, life happens. Softball games. Car wrecks. Phone calls. Doctor's appointments. Bumped heads and bruised knees. Meetings. Broken down trucks. And it's only Wednesday.

These other factors keep me from being the neat, orderly person I would be on my own. I don't get to maintain my home in the way I would like because outside influences creep in and disrupt my schedule. Sometimes I think my life would be so much easier if I didn't write Bible studies and blog articles, didn't homeschool my daughters, didn't teach classes, didn't actively pursue relationships, and didn't do most of the things I do. Then, I would have cleaned my garage sale mess, put my laundry, and organized my rooms.

I choose to view those outside influences a different way, however. My daughters were playing in those softball games, required the doctor's appointments, and needed care for bumps and bruises. My husband, our daughter, and her friend were inside that car that was in the wreck. My friend was at the other end of that phone call and she was hurt and angry. Missionaries rely on those meetings for their support. My husband and daughter were driving in that truck that broke down, leaving them stranded in 95* heat.

When we invest in the lives of others, our lives are going to be messy. But, opportunities to help others are why we are here. This life isn't about us - it's about how we can make a difference in the life of someone else.

This is the example Jesus set for us. His time on earth wasn't about Him; it was about us. He could have stayed in His home. I'm sure heaven was not only clean, comfortable, and organized; it was also extravagant, glorious, and perfect. He could have stayed there and left us to fend for ourselves in our spiritual battle for salvation. A battle we could not have won on our own, by the way.

But. He. Didn't.

“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death--even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:3-8).