“Check your pulse, it’s proof that you’re not listening to

The call your life’s been issuing you

The rhythm of a line of idle days.”    -Great Indoors, John Mayer

What a perfect metaphor for the way in which the majority of the general population goes about their days. We wake up and begin each day with a somewhat set agenda, spend the next sixteen hours or so attempting to accomplish it, and drag ourselves back to bed to rest a bit before doing it all over again the next day. What happens in those sixteen hours is completely up to the individual. The whole world is your treasure chest, full of opportunities and possibilities endlessly spread out before you. You can choose to be a creature of habit, molding each day into the next with many of the same choices occurring over and over again. You can choose to be experimental, never doing the same thing twice, always flitting around and never settling on one focus or two. Or you can push. You can realize that there is more to life, more to discover and accomplish. You can desire to live radically different than you have previously done.

This is a possibility for every single person on the planet. In fact, I believe that it is not only a possibility, it is a calling. Each day that I end, I reflect back on what it was worth. Did I pray? Did I reach out to a friend or acquaintance? Did I think about the grand scheme of things? I only have to analyze my emotions to discover the answers. If I feel empty and pointless, then the answer is no to all. Even if I can answer yes, however, still I feel restless. I’m missing something, something crucial. I’m not so sure that this feeling will ever go away.

What is the point of life? For someone whose life has been redeemed by Christ, the point is to go about each day in such a way that it is your best possible answer to His love. I like the way Brett put it in one of his songs: “What do we do with a love like that/but answer back with all we have/You see it’s not in words we say/but in the life that lives this way.” It is literally impossible to repay God for the gift of salvation, but unless we give that task our all everyday, we will be incomplete, restless, and empty.

If I go to bed feeling excited, I will wake up wondering what it was I was so excited about. A few minutes of searching the shelves of my memory will reveal the answer and set the tone for my day. Sometimes I’ll wake up excited and then realize there is nothing to be excited about. These days are the worst. I’ve written a little lately that I’ve been feeling called to something huge. I would have to look at my previous journal to discover when this prompting began, but I’m going to say mid-February. It sparked at Seven24. God began to nudge my heart that He wanted me to start living radically differently. I felt it deep down in my soul and desired it with all of my heart, yet I didn’t know where to begin living it out.

I don’t think I’m the only person who is being called to such a revolutionary concept. I believe everyone is; I just happened to take a second to listen and give God a minute to rock my world. Yes, it is scary to surrender your life- your plans, your hopes, your dreams, even your friendships and connections. He may want you to do that which you never would have considered. He may even want you to do the last thing on your list of ideal activities. You can choose to accept the challenge or you can choose to keep on keepin’ on the way you always have. But think about it for a moment: God gave you this life. He gave you His unconditional love, grace, mercy, forgiveness, joy, and strength. Are you thankful? Prove it. Live in a way that attests to His almighty awesomeness. You might just find it’s what you’ve wanted all along.