pressing on....

It is well...
It is well....with my soul......
Love that song.
What an excellent reminder for me to press on no matter my circumstances.
And so...here I am...pressing on.....
This weekend I attended the funeral of a friends' mom at our old church which is very conservative and "in the box", so to speak, and the eulogies were sweet and funny, but probably would have been more suited at a grange hall or a bowling alley, rather than a baptist church.
At the end, a friend of the family was asked to speak about....matters of faith, which I thought was good, in theory, and then I began to wonder if this was the best use of the time given or, rather should there have been more testimony about how a relationship with the God of the universe changes us, or how the Love that God shows us makes us more like Him which, in turn, draws the lost to us asking, "what's different about you?", know what I mean?
The whole thing gave me pause....which has caused me to ask myself that same question: am I making the best use of my time?
Does my life give testimony to the One whom I serve?
In contrast, the pastor at our new church was speaking on Sunday morning to a crowded service about that exact thing: how God has changed him since he gave his life to him all those years ago and how God doesn't care about our garbage because He loves us. He wants to take our garbage to the curb and leave it there forever, if only we'd reach out to Him and when we do the joy that floods our souls knowing that God has done all the work and that we are clean...if only we'd reach out to him....yes, there was scripture, of course, but it wasn't....churchy or guilt-ridden....it was just real, which is what people are hungry for in this world.
Real people of faith living out what they believe no matter the cost. Real people of faith who put others first ahead of their own selfish desires. Real people of faith who love in the name of the Lord instead of judging others who don't look like them or live like them, picking and choosing who should come to the Lord, so to speak.
For that is my desire: to love people in the name of the Lord and to be a good steward of the time given by the Lord, which I believe is short.
God has also reminded me that this space is a ministry and that I need to treat it so.
Pressing on....