You can plan for tomorrow but live for today

Dear Friends:

I hope everyone is enjoying a wonderful day with little stress. I started to write my message for the day and was blessed to find this old message about the importance real living. I hope that the message blesses you in a new way and moves you ahead.

My love to you all.

Stay blessed,

K.

Dear Friends-

I'm watching a television listening to people who claim to have had a spiritual awakening as a result of recently released book on spirituality. Without focusing on the actual book, I began thinking about the principles-and why I wasn't so awestruck by the "new" information I had heard. The reason was because the principles weren't new. They were God's words repackaged. The authors used buzzwords to make the principles sound more mysterious than they really were. God gives us instructions for our lives. However, when we view His principles, from OUR perspectives, and make them more palatable to follow, we've made our needs more important than serving God.

A few years ago, I had a mentor who told me that cancer was one of the best things that had ever happened to her. It took me a few minutes to "get over myself" and really hear her. Regina believed that it wasn't until she received a seeming death sentence that she understood what it meant to be fully alive. Regina had a way of talking to you that made you feel like what you had to say was the most important thing in the world. She stopped, looked you in the eye, and HEARD you. She didn't answer her cell, she didn't think ahead to her next appointment, she listened and heard. Every event, every activity, every conversation was the most important thing to her at the time because she was so intent on living every moment that she didn't want to miss anything.

I'll never forget that lunchdate. She told me not to worry or spend too much time concerned about the future because it was a bad habit that was difficult to break. God gave Regina the gift of cancer to wake her up and make her LIVE (even though she didn't consider it a gift at the time). We never stop making plans or looking to the future but, if you MUST look ahead, live while you plan. Be present with your spouse. Be present with your children. No matter how real it feels, our lives and problems aren't really real because they're actually the sum total of our choices.

Your faith and obedience to God, your engagement in relationships and your service to others is all that really matters.

Don't wait for your "cancer" to snap to attention. Consider this you wakeup call. Live!

Stay blessed,

K.

Matthew 6:

²⁵ "That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear. Isn't life more than food, and your body more than clothing? ²⁶ Look at the birds. They don't plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren't you far more valuable to him than they are? ²⁷ Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?

²⁸ "And why worry about your clothing? Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow. They don't work or make their clothing, ²⁹ yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. ³⁰ And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith?

³¹ "So don't worry about these things, saying, 'What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?' ³² These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. ³³ Seek the Kingdom of God^[d] above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.