Live Back

A phrase came to me the other night as I was falling asleep, when most good ideas pop into my head. The phrase was, "Live Back." To me, this phrase challenges the idea of people giving back to their communities by donating time or money. Both of those are great things, don't get me wrong, but I want to challenge the idea of giving back into a more permanent and sustainable cycle.

Think about giving. When people give it is usually in fads or trends. For instance, giving to Haiti, the Gulf Coast, giving to charity around Christmas time, or going on week long mission trips. Again, all of these are helpful, but what if we can do more? The giving lasts a day or week, and our investment is rather weak. We may send a check that gives a community a water source, but we are not much more connected with that community or the ongoing project than we were before. We can go and help for a week clean up hurricane relief, but no matter how hard we try, a lot of the relationships we even make on those trips are lost.

So what would it look like, if instead of just giving back, if we lived back. I feel like our idea of "neighbor" in the Church has done a great job of expanding to the entire world. In this process however, I feel like sometimes we forget about our true geographical neighbors living right here next to us. My idea of living back combines your God given gifts and talents and the needs of the community around you. If you are a person who enjoys planning and has a knack for it, maybe you could plan block parties or plan community events where people gather to meet one another and simply enjoy each others presence. If you are savvy with numbers, live back and help others with budgets or taxes. If you are someone who is giving and has plenty, offer your car, spare rooms, extra food, ect. for those who have less. If you love to cook, find those in the community around you who are sick or lost a loved one or just recently moved in and offer a meal. If you are a great teacher help to teach. If quality time is a gift of yours, consider just being a friend or baby sitting.

These are just small easy ideas that are practical and could be easily implemented into our daily lives. Think about people in CEO positions, or actors, musicians, teachers, store owners, mechanics, doctors, whoever, whatever position, living back every day in their lives. Not only would we be living back every day in something that we are naturally good at, but we would be less likely to be burnt out since we would actually enjoy what we were doing.

So my challenge to you: talk with others, spend time praying, brainstorm, and come up with your talents, and what you enjoy doing. Take these talents and use them in your life daily for the glory of God. I have a feeling that not only will you be serving God daily, but you will find greater meaning in your work, and in life. The only way you can prove me wrong is by trying.

Let us Live Back.