Taking Inventory

This week, I returned from Mission trip to Coweta, OK and immediately began moving my office from one room to another at the church. I don't know how many times you may have moved your office, but it is really a chore to get that done. It is almost worse than moving into a new one on arrival at a new place to work. I discovered that I had become comfortable in my little office and when another room became available, it seemed like the thing to do. It is larger and quieter, so I thought I wouldn't have any trouble getting settled. Wrong! What I discovered was that moving required me to pack up and evaluate what to keep and what to store. I began to take inventory and then spent some time remembering what each item meant to me. Pictures, crosses, art work, not to mention files and books. Each of them has a story and those stories represent friends who have loved me. I suppose it is old hat so to speak to be reminded that it is a good thing to stop and take inventory of the things I own because that makes me take inventory of my life. You know, who I am and where I am going, that sort of thing. Mission trips do that for me too. When we travel to work for others, sleep in someone else's church and spend long hot days trying to make get the jobs done, life sometimes gets lost in the busyness and the things that we have and do. On arrival home, and after a good nap, there is time to reflect on what had just happened. And what happened in moving my office and working on a Mission trip is that my life is never the same for I am reminded that I am only here for a short period of time. So it isn't what I collect that makes me who I am, it is what I do with the time I have. What do you think? I'd love to talk with you about it, why not come by some Sunday and let's see if we can understand one another. Allen