525,600 Minutes

Sitting here at my computer reflecting on the past few weeks and can't help but thinking about the song "Seasons of Love" from the musical Rent.  525,600 minutes, that's the number of minutes in a year.  Honestly, I'm having a hard time trying to measure 43,200 minutes, that's the number of minutes in a month.  So much has happened to me and around me that it's really hard to measure it all.

I spent the evening at a meeting for swim team for my oldest son.  We're contemplating the commitment to swim team and what that will mean for our family.  Having made some major moves as a church family towards a more missional approach towards life and ministry, I keep finding myself laughing at the humor of one of the greatest missional tools of all: children.

Children have a tendency of pulling their parents in a thousand different directions.  If the parents have any sense about them, they'll take advantage of the opportunities that come their way.  From a community and connection standpoint, I can't think of a better way to begin to understand and know your community than through your kids.  It's probably among the most natural approaches towards missional living.  It's pretty easy to cheer your kids on and meet people in the process.

Of course, this certainly doesn't preclude those without children or with older children from being involved, and I think that it can be just as natural.  Sometimes life has a tendency to favor the social extraverts though, leaving the introverts in the dust, waiting to find ways that work with their personalities.

I have found that intentionality is a big word in life.  How do I become intentional with my children?  Do I enjoy or try to enjoy the things that they like?  How do I become intentional with my neighbors?  Do I offer myself to them as a "good neighbor" or one who wants to keep to himself, or worse, one who only comes over when he needs something?  How do I become intentional in every area of my life?  How do I pay attention to all of the things that are happening around me?

525,600 minutes seems like a long time.  When you figure that you're sleeping for 153,300 of those minutes and working for another 175,200, that only leaves another 197,100 minutes left.  That's 9 hours a day left over.  What are you doing for those other 9 hours?  Hanging out on Facebook?  Playing "Words with Friends"?  Watching TV?  Playing video games?

I keep thinking about this intentionality with which I want to live my life.  I want to make a difference, but making a difference happens smaller and slower than most people think, with one step at a time.  I'm going for baby steps, making the most of each one.  Hope you can join me in doing the same.