"Spiritual Sundays"

I went skydiving on Saturday. Here are some pictures.

Having Church, Sunday School, and small group all on the same day is great - except come Monday I realize that I have a lot of "topics" to process through and have to focus on one at a time throughout the week.

Topic 1: Making Life Work
Pastor Chuck has been preaching through Ecclesiastes. This week's sermon was on Ecc 1:12-18 . His point, I believe, is that most of us are involved in the pursuit of "making life work." We accumulate knowledge and wisdom (through the media, books, school, each other) to find ways to make our lives "work". However, greater knowledge usually comes with a greater realization of our ignorance, and solutions to our problems may generate even greater problems. The reason that Ecclesiastes states "What is twisted cannot be straightened; what is lacking cannot be counted" is because we're never meant to be able to fix everything and achieve our "ideal life" through knowledge. Pursuing knowledge to this end is futile; if knowledge can solve our problems, we have no need for God.

I find that I spend a lot of my time reading magazines and newspapers to figure out how to practically arrange my schedule and lead my life from day to day. I have this idea in my head of what it will be like to live an ideal life. My language is usually filled with the phrase "I should." However, when I follow the schedule I create for myself, I tire out and start losing control over my life. Instead of getting angry at myself, I need to realize that my focus shouldn't be on what is the ideal life; it should be on living for God. Of course God values self-discipline and self-control, but instead of focusing on what I should and shouldn't be doing, I need to focus on the mission of God and how to honor Him and serve Him best with my time. Sometimes it means taking care of myself and doing things I enjoy, sometimes it means serving His church. I need to stop trying to be this ideal person living in this ideal life, and start praying about who God has created me to be and how I can best live for Him.