Tomorrow I'm moving out my summer apartment after work. It's hard to believe the summer is almost over. Granted, there is still almost a month left until school starts, but it feels like time has just flown by. I'm kind of disappointed in myself though. Maybe I did a lot this summer, but it doesn't really feel like it. I had so many high and lofty plans for the summer. I was going to read a lot of books and spend a lot of time in the Word and in prayer, I was going to go deeper in specific friendships, I was going to have a super memorable summer. But I don't feel as though I accomplished much. It's been really frustrating to me the last couple months of how complacent I have gotten with my life.
I visited my roommate Ginny down in Boonville last weekend which was a fun adventure. On Sunday we went to service at her church which is a Foursquare Church. For those of you like me who had no idea what that is, I think the best way to describe it would be a branch of Pentacostal. There were a lot of loud of loud voices singing and praying and proclaiming truth, people had their shoes off(yay, just like me!), they were exuberant in their worship, their faith was written all over their face. There was also some things that I wasn't very used to, like speaking in tongues and lots of praying over people.(to the point where they fell over, filled with the Holy Spirit perhaps?)
All that aside though, the sermon really spoke to me. The speaker talked about time. About using the time we are given to live the life God has called us to live. To not waste the time we have, because once it passes, we can never get it back. She talked about all the distractions in our life that cause us to waste our time.
Some of the things I wrote down while listening were:
"The purpose of distraction is to make you forget why God gave you time in the first place."
"We have been given time on this earth to do what God has called us to do."
"When we understand why we are here on this earth, what our specific calling is, we can focus on it. Getting rid of the distractions in your life gives you time."
"There is a difference between something being restorative and being a distraction. A distraction pulls you away from the work of God"
"When we misunderstand why we are here, we misuse our time."
All this really clicked with me and really frustrated me at the same time. Because I am a time waster. I remember listening to Adventures in Odyssey when I was younger(read a few years ago) and there was an episode done in a Twilight Zone fashion. The story within the story was about a girl who wasted time by always going to the mall and a boy who wasted time by always watching TV. Their lives were so consumed with their time wasters that they missed out on anything meaningful in life. Granted, those stories were a tad extreme; the girl spent 20 years in the mall to come out and find that life had gone on without her, but they still drive home a point. I try to cut out the distractions in my life, but I'm really good at finding new ones all the time. If I cut off facebook, I find a new website to browse. If I cut off TV, I find random things to read(read NOT homework). But I don't really know how to stop this. My goal for this next semester is to not waste time. I want to severely limit my time on the computer not related to school, I want to stop communicating with people via facebook or google+. I really want to be dedicated in my schoolwork and with building relationships with my roommates and other friends.
I truly believe that when we cut out distractions in our life, when we get things done that need to be done without procrastinating, that God can use that to open up possibilities for discussion with people, for kingdom work to be done. I want to be able to get my homework done in a timely manner so that when I have spare time, I can use it to write a letter to a friend, or read my Bible more, or tackle the stack of books I have sitting on my dresser.
I need some motivation and some sticking-to-my-guns-ness.
*sigh*
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