Living Life To Its Fullest

 1. Put your faith and family first. Everything flows forth from here. Our commitment to our God and our family should be the primary commitment of our lives. Faithfulness does not just happen it grows out of a commitment to being faithful in worship and in being an active part of a faith community.  Good families don’t just happen they grow out of a commitment to be present to one another physically and emotionally. It is about making time for each other and about being present to each other during that time.

 2. Know your values and live them. When corporate or political scandals break in the news I often hear myself saying “How could this happen?” As the stories unfold it almost always comes out that people compromised their values one small step at a time. If it had been one large step they might have said no but each little step didn’t seem so bad as they took it. The answer is to know our values and live them. This is Character.

 3. Embrace your vocation. Vocation is that part of our lives and work that is our calling and motivation. Many of us make choices in our lives because we feel a calling or a longing for that work.  This can include marriage and children, career or hobby choices. Over time though the part of the experience that was a calling can be forgotten and replaced by other choices that seemed more practical or prudent at the time. It is never too late to return to our vocation or to seek a new one.

 4. Use time wisely. On the Doctor Phil show once there was a story about a 3 year old who watched TV for 9 hours a day. Dr. Phil’s answer was to take all the TVs out of the house for at least a month. This is a dramatic example of the poor use of time but it is relevant. Time is one of the few things we can never regain. As families do we use our time to build relationships. As individuals do we use our time to nurture our spiritual, physical and mental well being. As a church do we use our time together to the best of our ability.

 5. Embrace Life’s Blessing.  Our families, our friends, our jobs can all be blessings that we over look because they are there every day. We can fall into the trap of taking them for granted or even seeing them as obstacles. Stop. Take a breath, forgive that which falls short of your expectations and forgive your own shortness with others and  embrace the blessings of your life.

 6. Live to be a blessing. I believe we all in one way or another enjoy God’s blessings.  Each of us has the power to make a life changing difference in our own lives and those around us by being a blessing to others.