Thoughts of a Sojourner

Over the last few weeks, I have shared about rediscovering joy in life and one of the things that is a huge part of this journey of joy is living to embrace life. I think so many people busy themselves up with inconsequential things that they forget that great happiness, joy and contentment is found in the concept of embracing life. How would I define the embracing of life for me? That is the question I want to deal with in this writing. Most of what I will share include are things and concepts that can bring joy no matter who you are or where you are in your life at the moment. First, we must look at this life that God has blessed us with as a gift of His grace. I am overwhelmed at just the thought that our Creator allowed me to be born in such a time as this! It is a gift that each day we are blessed with the just being able to awake to a new day with adventure and new things to discover. Honestly for most of my life, I didn’t slow down enough to think of life from this prospective. I realize that life can get busy and some days are we hardly have time to stop and just take a deep breath, but we must take time to slow down from time to time and just take in the blessings, the little things that surround us each day. Secondly, I have made it a point to simplify things where life is concerned. Much like Spring cleaning or cleaning out a closet, it is good to periodically sit back and evaluate our life and take time to purge those things that weigh us down, but offer no value added experiences to our life. For some it may be the unending pursuit of material things. Jesus shared a parable of a rich fool in Luke in Luke 12 that spent his life pursuing and piling up material things that really counted for nothing. The fool sat back one day and patted himself on the back for all that he cluttered his life up with, but that night the Lord came to him in a dream and ask him “…Fool, this night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” (Luke 12:20). Ive often wondered what this rich fool may have missed in his life of stress and the compulsive pursuit of material things. I wonder what he missed out in his children’s lives. I wonder about the bond between he and his wife. I wonder how many of the small, beautiful things that life offers up had been missed. Thirdly, so many miss out on love for their family, time with those that they should love more, love and admiration for this natural world that God has painted like a canvas for us to enjoy and most importantly our love ad fellowship with God Himself. To miss out on love is to miss out on the most cherished thing that God hard wired us to enjoy. I suppose of all the things in an earthly sense that has and is the most important ingredient in embracing life for me is being intentional in this area. I have found in this last year that I have a great desire to love my family big. To embrace and grow the love I have for my girls and my grands! The love and appreciation that I have for my extended family – my mom, brother and his family, nieces, nephews, church family. Another thing that recently I have embraced is the pursuit of love that I enjoyed with Kim for so many years. I think it is unfathomable to think that I could love that deeply as a husband and companion and never long for that again. I am thankful that God has sparked the desire for this again in my life. Recently, the Lord has helped me to begin to rediscover love in this way again and I am overwhelmed by God’s grace in this area. I am happier than I have been in a year! I am overwhelmed by how God answered this prayer and put me in a place to begin to find this love again which was one of things that my bride unselfishly prayed and desired for me.

I am excited about all these areas of embracing life that I enjoy during this season of life. I have a renewed sense of joy in this journey and cannot wait to see where God leads in this sojourn. So in closing this writing out, I want to encourage you the reader to become intentional about embracing life!