unsettled?!

I have reached that point in my life. I knew it was coming but I didnt want to face it. Something has been brooding in my soul but I have avoided dealing with it, suppressing the feelings and passing them off as tiredness or sillyness. But now it is as if I can't settle until I begin to ask and answer some very big questions about my life.
Who am I really? What do I want my life to be about? What is important to me? What is God saying to me?
Leading Youth for Christ through the organisational restructure really wrecked me. It ploughed up my heart big time and brought a lot of these questions to the surface.
Then being in Calgary brought a really positive renewal in my heart. I loved being there, preaching, meeting leaders and being inspired again by the beauty of the church, global and local.
Last night at True, Brian Heasley challenged me big time. He talked about the danger of being settled.
"Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Haran, they settled there.

Terah lived 205 years, and he died in Haran."

I guess this verse sums it up for me. Deep in my heart a little fire burns, like a pilot light. The fire once raged and caused me to move out and make decisions based on my faith in a wonderful God. But life places demands on us. Each month before I do anything, I have to think about all these things.. a mortgage, electricity, oil, diesel for my car, house insurance, life insurance, phone bill, tv liscence, internet, food, car tax and the list goes on and on and on...

It is as if life does everything it can to lead us into a place of being settled. If I decide that this is the path my life will take then I just need to keep the pay cheques ticking over for the next 28 years or something like that. After that... I will own a house!!

No wonder Solomon, who had everything got freaked out and exclaimed, "meaningless, meaningless everything is meaningless." or a bit more accurately.. (from Ecclesiastes)

1 The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem:

2 "Meaningless! Meaningless!"
says the Teacher.
"Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless."

3 What does man gain from all his labor
at which he toils under the sun?

4 Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.

5 The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.

6 The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.

7 All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.

8 All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.

9 What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.

Throw into the mix that our homegroup is doing a study on John Piper's book 'Don't Waste Your Life!' In which the author essentially challenges the readers with the reality of presenting our life and ministry to Jesus Christ on the final day. He jokes about the scandal of saying 'Lord, my handicap is a 3, or check out my shell collection'

So I am asking a lot of questions but I think I know the aim of these. I want life, I want it to the full. I don't want it to waste it. No practice run, one life and I want it to count. I guess I want to get to heaven and meet lots of friends who are their because God in some small way connected me with them and with Him. I don't want to go half way and then settle.. and die!

I have been a Christian for 10 years. I have made many mistakes. I have experienced many blessings. I have known what is it like to have plenty and to have nothing. I have loved God and I have loved people and at times I have been disappointed by both and also disappointed both. But in these ten years one thing has stayed the same, this passionate desire deep in my heart to make my one life count for the glory of God.