One Month To Live: Live Passionately

Posted: August 7, 2011 at 4:00 pm

I recently began a new book called One Month to Live. The book focuses on living life to the fullest through Biblical principles. I am in love with it! The book is broken down into four parts - one for each week -and each part has a different motivational reading for each day. After getting into this book, and hearing your interest in the study, I decided I have to do a weekly feature sharing some of the great insights I picked up from each day. So, let’s get started!

PRINCIPLE ONE: LIVE PASSIONATELY

Don’t Fear What Excites You: Many people’s favorite day of the week is “someday” – meaning that we will put off our hopes, dreams, desires, and goals because we can’t get to them TODAY. We will also think life will not really satisfy until that day comes and lose appreciation for TODAY. The biggest thing that holds us back? Fear! Keep a God-centered perspective and those big giants that make our passions somewhat scary quickly become small ants from His viewpoint. Our biggest dreams require faith.

Use Time Wisely: Don’t live life frivolously. Time is our most valuable commodity and we should use it on the things that really matter to us. We must engage ourselves in the present and take a close look at our lives, our days, and what ways we waste our time. This passage instigated my one and only goal for the month of August!

wastetime source

Stay Connected to God: For spiritual health we must remain connected to God through communication (prayer) and confession (so we can move past troubles). God can work through us and fulfill our lives. That is His responsibility. Our responsibility simply comes in staying connected.

Take Care of Yourself: Notice that the popular Bible verse saying the second top commandment is to “love your neighbor as yourself”? Yea. That’s right. God wants us to love ourselves and care for ourselves. How you treat your body and spirit has a direct and lasting impact on the quality of life you can enjoy.

Don’t Have A Narrow View Of Life: God wants to work through us. We can’t get so caught up in trying to control our paths that we don’t see other possibilities and opportunities for growth that He readily gives. Stay open to God’s plans.

Live The Dream: Our dreams tug at our heartstrings for a reason – they are God given. Remember that when facing doubt or challenges or waiting periods in the dreams and passions you pursue. If it’s from God, it will find a way to work.

Failure Doesn’t Matter: We will have failures. We will have mistakes. However, God doesn’t view our mistakes and then shout “I told you so!” at us. He looks on us with compassion and helps us power through. The failures teach us something. They have a purpose and we can’t allow them to hinder living our lives.

ThomasAlvaEdison 

Good stuff, huh? I will now leave you with my favorite quote:

Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. For what the world needs is people who have come alive”. – Howard Thurman

  • Which of the seven days’ lessons struck you the most?

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32 Comments to “One Month To Live: Live Passionately”
  1. Love this one! Sounds like such a wonderful book…

  2. Hilary says:

    LOVE this! I especially like “don’t fear what excites you” and “live the dream,” as I am not a huge risk taker by nature – but pushing out of my comfort zone always yields big rewards. Booking my trip to HLS was a risk for me, but I could not be more excited!!!

  3. I remember this!! One month to live really changed my life and how I view my relationship and my walk with God. This was a great post 🙂

  4. I really really love this – especially the “don’t live a narrow life.” I personally find that it’s so easy to get caught up in the day to day, and it’s also easy to control the day to day, so that’s what I sometimes do. One of my goals is to open myself up a little more on a daily basis – take advantage of unique opportunities, be a bit more spontaneous, and just LIVE! Thanks for sharing, Tina!

  5. Maren says:

    I like the idea of living passionately. It’s definitely something I can work on.

  6. Haley Q says:

    Wow I’ve only read the 2nd commandment 58393 times, and it’s crazy sad that I never realized in the midst of it, God commands us to love ourselves. So powerful! Definitely looking forward to the next posts over the book!

  7. Amy says:

    A brilliant post, as always. This definitely made me stop and reflect this morning. So many things in my life have changed lately and my goals have shifted. I really do believe that ‘not fearing what excites me’ will help me to make things come true. Every single lesson has an impact on where I am right now, and is so valuable to a well lived life.
    Thank you for such a poignant message at the start of the week 🙂

  8. lindsay says:

    This books sounds exactly what I was looking for. I love thats its based on biblical principles. WOW, can’t wait to get it Tina. Thanks!

  9. Lisa says:

    Tina, you could seriously write a book. Reading your posts always make me feel so good & happy

  10. I saw this book on your blog the first time you posted about it and I went and got it! I just started it the other day. I think it’s exactly the kind of thing that I need :).

  11. This looks like a book I would like! Did you buy it at barns and noble? Thank you for sharing!

  12. I want to get this book now 🙂 I can’t wait to read the rest of your features on it.
    I think what struck me the most was to not have a narrow view on life. I have always kinda had this picture about what I am SUPPOSED to do, but haven’t really opened myself up completely to be used by God. I want to work on that, who knows where He may lead 🙂

  13. Failure doesn’t matter? I really need to pay attention to that one.

  14. Those are some great lessons. Don’t have a narrow view of life probably resonates the most for me. I could write on a book on how, so I’ll spare you but, I can definitely work on that one!

  15. laura says:

    Sounds like a great book!
    I really like the ‘ don’t fear what excites you’ & “take care of yourself”. The simple things can really make your life so much better

  16. I’ve had this book for over a year, but know that it has the potential to change my life…and I also know that I won’t let it. I’m saving the book, I guess, for when I’m ready to let my life be changed. I love your enthusiasm for life!

  17. Khushboo says:

    All great lessons but one that I could currently relate to is “Don’t fear what excites you”. Career-wise, this really hit the nail on the head for me. Because I’m venturing in the unknown, I’m scared to fall hard but like you said ‘failure teaches something’. Thanks for this, Tina!

  18. Jess says:

    Wow, I think I need to buy this book – such a plethora of inspirational words and ways of thinking. I especially love the “live the dream” mantra, something I’ve been trying more and more to take to heart. Life is too short for “what ifs” – it’s time to start living in the here and now, not in the ‘someday…” phase, you know?

  19. Love this post!! Especially this:
    “Keep a God-centered perspective and those big giants that make our passions somewhat scary quickly become small ants.”
    So true!! Happy Monday Tina 🙂

  20. […] one stuck out to me because it reminds me of these two posts. Oh, and also part of this one. Scroll down to the paragraph about Living the […]

  21. Melodie says:

    I love this. I actually have this book on my shelf at home 🙂 Thanks for this post, there is something that the Lord has been tugging on my heart to begin. A lot of my dreams have been put on the back burner for now. I am a mom to 2 boys and work full time… and I work full time so that my husband can pursue his dreams of movie editing. However, there is one dream that I can work on now 😉

  22. I love this, especially the one about how we shouldn’t fear what excites us. I do this ALL the time “oh, maybe one day”, “someday this’ll happen”. Maybe I should stop saying ‘maybe’ and looking ahead into the future and just do it now (plus, if I focus on the future to much I’ll miss out on what is happening now). This really had me thinking….

  23. karla says:

    I want to live passionately! but to be honest a lot of the time I feel depressed and like I’m not living life the way God wants me to experience it. I find your blog inspirational. congrats on urs body after baby progress! ur approach is so admirable! I have binged for years and no matter what I do I can’t stop it. I can eat all day healthy balanced treats etc it doesn’t matter at night I find myself with tons of food and as sick as it sounds its comforting and I like it. I think maybe bingeing is part of the reason I feel ‘dead’ and depressed with low energy a lot of the time. life is short I want to change but it feels like I never will 🙁 I wish I hated bingeing. thanks for sharing ur story I hope to one day be where u are!

    • Tina says:

      I want to give you a great big hug, Karla! Binging is hard to break free from and it does have an addictive, exciting quality to it. Oh, I know. It took me awhile to truly want to change and then I could put forth the effort to make it happen. I will say that it has given me such freedom to have more energy and attention to other things in life beyond food’s control. I hope you find that and I know you can. 🙂

      • Karla says:

        Thanks Tina! I will gladly take that hug! 🙂 Right now, I feel like if I truly want to end this bingeing, I am going to have to “tooth and nail” it. Did you ever have to do that? All the books I have read say to just eat intuitively, but to me intuitively means I eat a gallon of ice cream chased with a 6 pack of pb cups or I eat and then have to sit with the miserable feelings of wanting to binge.

        • Tina says:

          I will admit that when I first decided enough was enough and to get rid of the food rules and deprivation that helped trigger my binges, I did end up binging a bit at first as part of the “intuitive” process. But then, when I realized food didn’t have the power over me anymore it lost that appeal and I realized I didn’t even like a lot of things I binged on. It was a scary thing at first to allow it to happen like that, but I learned a lot and I guess got it out of my system. Then, I made sure to keep small portions of treats and “tooth and nail it” as you say from there on out. So I was more mindful and disciplined, but not restrictive if that makes sense. 🙂

  24. […] the first part of the One Month to Live book series I picked up recently. The section discussed living passionately and included many great insights. You all seemed to enjoy it, so I decided to continue with part […]

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