We're here only for a second and then we're gone.

This question was posed tonight at bible study: "If you knew you only had one year (or less) to live how would you change your everyday life (or life in general)? Many girls said they would get married, travel the world, eat anything they want, share their faith, be more vocal with their faith, and other things of this nature.

But as I thought about this question, I came up with another one myself: Why does someone telling us we will soon die have to be the one thing that would change the way we live? We should live everyday like we are going to die because we never know when our time will come. Now you're probably thinking "Yeah everyone says this." But for some reason today this struck me more than when I would hear it in the past. I don't know if it's because of the changes that have come about in my life as of late, the awesome conversations I have been having with people, or something else but I really dwelled on this one for a while after bible study.

A lyric from the song "Live Like We're Alive" by the band Nevertheless says this, "We're here only for a second and then we're gone when we least expect it so do more than survive, let's live like we're alive." One thing that seems to get in the way of our focus on God and living for him, is the desire to accumulate worldly possessions.
Many of the things that were listed off in our group were things of the world: traveling, marriage, wealth, and experiences. But 1 John 2:15 says, "The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever." With our culture now-a-days that advertises the lastest gadgets everywhere you look, those desires for worldly possessions can get very intense. We feel the need to buy things left and right to satisfy our temporary needs.

I can totally relate to this in that when I see an ad for something on tv or especially in the abundance of ads in Sunday's paper, some clothing item or shoe seems to always catch my eye. I think about whether or not I want to buy that item for several days. It usually is something I always think about and how good I would look or how cool it would feel to have that thing. But when I go and buy it and use it for about a week or so, it seems to always find its place in my closet and then soon another clothing item will fall on top of it and that piece of clothing will have gone through the same process as the other item below it. Earthly possessions cannot satisfy our needs in the way that God can. Boyfriends, girlfriends, family, gizmos, gadgets, or cars cannot earn the same satisfaction that God can in our lives. Experiencing that good feeling inside knowing God has met all of my needs and loves me unconditionally, it cannot get much better than that.