"For I live in eager expectation and hope that I will never do anything that causes me shame, but that I will always be bold for Christ, as I have been in the past, and that my life will always honor Christ, whether I live or I die. For to me, living is for Christ."¹

I read about a group of nuns who were given a vacation trip through the Rocky Mountains where they had never been before. They were filled with awe as they marveled at the wonder of the many miles of majestic mountains. However, every time they stopped to enjoy the view, one particular nun would slip away by herself. So on one occasion the other nuns decided they would follow her to see what she was up to. "They watched her as she walked into the gully. She bent down and reached under a sizable rock, and then turned the rock upside down. She brushed her hands and turned around to walk back up the trail. When she looked up, the entire Order of nuns was watching her.

"Margaret, what are you doing?" they asked.

"I'm turning over a rock," she replied.

"Why?" they asked. "Do you do that every time?"

She answered, "Yes."

"Why do you do that?"

She replied: "Because I will never pass this way again, and it's my intent to have made a difference while I was here. So I turn some rocks over so that this place is different because I passed here."²

A little amusing perhaps, but seriously, I want to make a difference—for time and eternity—as I pass through the journey of life! I don't think any of us want to have lived in vain. The best and ultimate way I know to make a difference is to make myself available for God to use every day of my life.

We are not all called to be homemakers, doctors, bakers, dressmakers, preachers, communicators, or whatever—but we are all called to be faithful and when we make ourselves available to God every day, be assured, he will use us to make a big difference in the lives of the people he brings across our path.

As Stephen Grellet so eloquently put it: "I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good thing, therefore, that I can do or any kindness I can show to any fellow human being let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again."³

Suggested prayer: "Dear God, at this the beginning of another New Year, I commit and trust my life and way to you and am available for Your service. Please use me this year to be 'as Christ' in some way to every life I touch and, in so doing, help make a difference in the world in which I live. Thank You for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully in Jesus's name, amen."

1. Philippians 1:20-21 (NLT).
2. Rev. Douglass M. Bailey, Sermon: "Hard Truth for Advent."
3. Attributed to Stephen Grellet (1773-1855).

<:))))><