Living a life that matters

I had a week off from camp and I flew home(ish) to Indiana and loved every minute. My roommate was incredible and I even got to go home and hang out with my parents. Anyways, while I was at her house I went for a much needed run..

This time my iPod was playing a sermon by Francis Chan and the sermon is titled Living a Life that Matters. I didn't finish the whole thing but the beginning was all I needed to hear that day. Francis was talking about what the title of his sermon meant and it blew me away.

He was talking about living like Christ and how He mattered wherever He went. Jesus mattered when He was flipping the temple tables just like He mattered when He was teaching His disciples. Jesus was noticed without trying...His relationship and love for His father caused other people to be affected by His presence or lack thereof.

I was thinking about this and it really paralleled with what the Lord has been teaching me lately. He has been showing me that I am at a point in my life where daily life is a choice that I get to make. I'm not in a place where life is kind of planned out for me...I can choose to stay at camp or go into town; I can choose to strike up a conversation with a cashier or I can walk by like the other hundreds of people that day. Life right now is pretty open ended and full of choices that will take me one way or another.

So, when I think about this sermon and my life...I realized that I want to matter. I know that sounds funny and kind of obvious but I have never really thought about all of the ways I can live out my faith that I have ignored so much in my life. I can matter to that cashier that hates her job. I can matter to that family that is walking around town wondering where a good restaurant is. I can approach every situation, regardless of how small, like Jesus would; in a way that matters and leaves a situation better then it was.

All that to say, I want to matter - I want to live my life in a way that it affects people simply because my relationship with my Savior is real.

I guess you could say that "what would Jesus do" came back into style for me.