This title had attracted my attention more than their earlier published "The Externally Focused Church" and newly launched "The Externally Focused Quest" because I was eager to read how ordinary individuals like me are making a remarkable impact through their service.
Having put it aside for two months, I managed to finish reading it once this week before my semester break ends.
I especially liked the following excerpt from Chapter 1:
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"We have a story we are writing with our life choices, one moment at time. God desires for his story to intersect with our stories and for our stories to be changed--for us to realize that we are more than our past and our present circumstances. Between our first day and our final day, there is a much bigger story that wer are part of. More important, it's not only about us. Our lives can have a significant impact on someone else's story!
God wants people to discover his story, and God can use us to help others do exactly that. Think of Paul's words to the curious in Athens: "God who made the world...gives all men life and breath and everything else...he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us" (Acts 17:24-27). As God is involved in orchestrating people's lives--their jobs, their neighborhoods, their life situations--he desires to use us to tell his story so that others will seek and find him. We are an integral link to the connection God desires to have in others' lives.
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Sometimes our lives may look like insignificant cardboard puzzle pieces--not even a border piece or one with an obvious place to fit into. We might even think some of the puzzle pieces in our box belong in other boxes! We wonder what good our lives are--not much value, not much significance, nearly useless. But this is God's picture, his puzzle. He knows what he's doing. If the Bible is right, then God indicates that our parts of the puzzle are needed, valued, and planned for.
So who are we? What are our lives? That all depends. We can simply collect all that has been tossed into our beings. We can be defined by our successes and failures or limited by the unfortunate things that have happened to us. Or we can be a people who see our lives as ones to be used, enjoyed, and lived in such a way that God's story is being written through our stories--and our stories are impacting the stories of others."
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Rick Rusaw asked the reader a question in Chapter 3:
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"Have you ever been so focused on yourself or something in your life that you didn't even notice the other people all around you or in front of you--much less make an effort to help meet their needs? It's time for us to pay attention--to focus on others."
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I have made it a resolution to live an externally focused life in order to add life to my years rather than add years to my life on earth.
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