Last summer I began my time of renewal by taking a personal retreat and spending a few intense days working through Kurt Senske's great book, "The Calling - Live a Life of Significance." One of the most important points Senske makes in his book (maybe the most important and most fundamental) is that God must be at the center of our lives if we wish to live a life of real significance. He also emphasizes how difficult this is. The devil, the world we live in and our own sinful flesh wants to pull us in a different direction than the one the Holy Spirit is leading us to take.
God wants us to love our neighbor. We are often (daily!) pulled in a different direction - to love and serve and satisfy ourselves. We must decrease in order to give God first place in our lives. The temptation is to want to take that place for our own enjoyment.
So the journey is not easy but the blessings are greater than you can imagine. Senske writes: By taking the road less traveled, we, in effect, turn the post-modern world, with its elusive, and ultimately unfulfilling, values, on its head. No longer do we ask, "What's in it for me? How can I get ahead?" Instead, we ask, "How can I be the hands and feet of Christ in this world?" In this way we reflect who we truly are, "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God..." (1 Peter 2:9)
To whom can you be the hands and feet of Christ in the world today?
