Variations on a theme

Sometimes things people say or phrases I hear just stick in my head... then, even months later, a little lightbulb goes on and I realize that they are all related. Hmm... could God be trying to tell me something?

1). Out for dinner with a friend, I was whining about my clunkermobile, and talking about how I wanted to buy a brand new car. He was trying to convince me that I wanted a newer, used car, and that I shouldn't buy new. I was adamant.

Well, I guess it just depends on what you want to spend your money on.

2.) Sitting around the table in the staffroom, I was talking religion with a man who had grown up Jewish and a woman who had grown up a strict Catholic - school with the nuns and everything. Neither really practice their religion now as adults. But we were talking about faith, and what impact that has on our life. The catholic woman was talking about how maybe really all faith is is something psychological to help get us through hard times. (I disagree totally, but that's a whole other post! :P). She just didn't seem satisfied with what faith/religion had given her.

There HAS to be more to life than this.

3.) I was listening to the local Christian radio station a while back, and they always have these little "inspiration moments," which I usually tune out (cause honestly, sometimes they're very cheesy) but this line stuck out:

What do you want your life to count for? How do you spend your money accordingly?

4.) One of the reasons I took a blogger break was because it was becoming too important to me. I was spending more time than what I was happy with browsing and writing and blog-fiddling. In the midst of me feeling bad about how much time I was spending online, a friend forwarded me an email that had the following quote at the bottom. Oof.

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives ~ Anne Dillard

5.) You know how the first song you hear in the morning is often the song that's stuck in your head all day long? Well a I was pondering all these thoughts, knowing that very soon I was going to have to sit down and take a good long and hard look at what I value, how I'm spending my time and money, and what changes I need to make to become the person I want to be, I heard a new Switchfoot song on the radio (hear a clip by clicking here and then clicking on "This is your life." "Meant to live" could also fit!)

This is your life, are you who you want to be? This is your life, is it everything you dreamed it would be?

I haven't been able to get this line out of my head for a couple of days now. It's time to spend some time listening to God and doing some thinking...

* what do I want my life to count for?
* who do I want to be?
* how do I want to spend my life, and so what do I need to do with my days and my money so that they match up?
* what do I need to do to work towards these goals?

Finally, I have the time to think. I hope I don't waste this opportunity.