The Future (Time Part 2)

The Future (Time Part 2)-


     James 4:13-17 states, “13 Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit’; 14 whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. 15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.” 16 But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. 17 Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.”

     Proverbs 27:1 mentions, “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth.”


     Check out verse 14. It starts by mentioning we have no idea what will happen tomorrow. We don’t even know what will happen in the next minute though we could guess. Let me repeat that, we do not know anything in the future whether near or far. However, we constantly act like we know what’s next. People plan for the newest technology, athletes try to predict the next play, musicians work toward the next concert, students choose colleges, and most people look forward to the weekends. Is it wrong to think ahead? Well no, not exactly. Shall we discuss?

     First, let’s finish up verse 14. Again, it mentions how short our lives are in the scheme of the universe this time calling our lives a, “Vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.” I won’t go into too much detail here since I did so in the last post. However, remember we don’t live forever and our lives our actually quite short on the timeline of the world. Right now the average person takes up about one percent of the time the earth’s been around, yet the number keeps shrinking every day. Also, we don’t know the future or our death date. The way we live our minuscule lives, however, can make quite a difference. Think about Kings and Queens or average people who have changed the course of history because of how they used their time such as Martin Luther or the Founding Fathers. Without them would the United States be free?

     In short, Dictionary.com defines boast as, “To speak with exaggeration and excessive PRIDE, especially about oneself.” We hear about do it all the time. Sure, some people boast more than others, and some are very humble. Yet, everyone has boasted one time or another. This scripture mentions boasting in arrogance and says, “All such boasting is evil.” The Proverbs clearly states the message as well, we have no idea about the future so don’t boast about it! Think about it.

     We all plan for the future. Every day we think about what’s next, and occasionally get caught up in it. People spend fifteen to twenty-five years in school. By then, on average, a third of their life has disappeared. We have calendars that show us the future. We plan events and certain dates. We can’t wait until a few days when something special is happening, yet we really have no clue what could happen. Only God knows our future.

     Is it bad to plan ahead? I think it’s almost impossible not to do such a thing. While schooling seems to take forever and like most of it is a waste, we need to educate people, simple as that. We need to plan certain times to be with people otherwise we may never find them. However, maybe we get a little too caught up in tomorrow, and forget to live today. We cannot live in the future, only in the now, so why try to do the impossible. The worst part is we procrastinate and put things off until the future. HOWEVER, God’s plans often contradict ours in which case we need to obey his, so it might be a good idea not to plan too much*.

     Verse 17 states, “Therefore, to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.” That’s a pretty powerful and bold statement. James is calling it a sin to not do good if we know not to do it. Well, how do we know? Remember that little voice, your conscience or better yet the Holy Spirit? I’m going to go ahead and say that it won’t be hard to figure out, except we try to make excuses to get out of the situation. This verse is essentially telling us that when we know we are supposed to do something, do it NOW, don’t wait.

     This is perhaps one of my biggest struggles. I tend to make excuses to justify myself for not doing what I should have. Possibly because I’m scared and too much of a wimp and not bold enough to take risks. However, I find that when letting God just use me as a tool and praying for Him to do his will and help me that doing the task becomes much easier. When we ask God to help us and He does, then what excuse do we have then? Remember, prayer is a powerful tool, so use it. Most importantly, when that certain event comes, keep in mind verse seventeen and just do it.

     The future is a difficult issue like most things, yet God ultimately controls it, and so everything is for a purpose. We need not stress too much as long as we listen to the Lord. Our lives are short and we don’t know the future, but God does. The verses both stressed not boasting about tomorrow, which is a good idea. However, we always plan and cannot escape it, but ultimately we must follow God’s way and toss our plans. Lastly, we must not shy away from taking risks and do what we know must be done as stated in verse seventeen. Hopefully, you found something in this pile of mumbling and possibly learned something about the future.

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*Jeremiah 29:11, “’For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’”

Wasting Time (Time Part 1)

Time: The indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future regarded as a whole.

Waste: Use or expend carelessly, extravagantly, or to no purpose.

Sorry, no cheesy dating example for this one though I could probably come up with one. Just a couple of definitions of words we all know pretty well. But what about the two words together? Wasting time. In a serious, sense, what does it mean? We’ve all wasted some time at some point or another whether it was doing something useless like playing video games or falling asleep when you were supposed to do homework. Sure, some people dispose of more time than others, but everyone experiences this type of squandering.

What about wasting your life, and spending years chasing after the wrong thing? Think about this, the average person in the USA only live to around the age of seventy-four. However, only God knows the actual date when our life will end. It could be at the age of seventy-four, it could be ten years from now, one year, a week, tomorrow, and, heck, possibly even the next five minutes. I’m not trying to scare anybody. I’m just making the point that we have no idea when our life is going to end, so do not waste what you have currently. Now back to wasting time.

By the time a person enters high school say at the age fourteen, on average, almost twenty percent of that student’s life has already passed. When they finish college around the age of twenty-four, that percentage has increased by twelve. Another eight percent goes by six years later. Psalms 39:4-6 says, “’Show me, Lord, my life’s end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting my life is. You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Everyone is but a breath even those who seem secure. Surely everyone goes around like a mere phantom; in vain they rush about, heaping up wealth without knowing whose it will finally be.”

This is a very interesting verse, but I want to focus on the second sentence. A handbreadth is a measurement of length based on using the hand, so it’s pretty short. Hence, or lives are short in the scheme of the universe. Sure, Methuselah lived to be about 969 years old, but something tells me none of us are going to reach that. Since our lives are so short in the big picture that makes time even more valuable. We are, “but a breath.”

So why does any of this matter? Well, looking back at my past, it feels like a lot of it was a waste. Not all of it, I was in no way the person I am today back then and have grown closer to the Lord. Yet, I postponed a lot of God’s commands. When he asked me to do something a lot of times I would put it off unless it worked out for me. I wasted that time. I haven’t evangelized to a lot of people, probably something I should’ve been doing all along. I wasted that time.  Ephesians 5:15-16 says, “Be careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most out of every opportunity for the days are evil.”  I wasted many opportunities, and didn’t make the most of them.

The days are evil brings up many thoughts. First, the world is evil and continues to grow in it and this makes the days evil, the time of age. Secondly, the days are short which means we have to truly make the most of every opportunity. If we didn’t need sleep perhaps we would have more time, but alas we need our precious naps. However, let’s not take naps from God’s will.

Now the real challenge lies in making the most of every opportunity. Making the MOST means using the entire opportunity to its full or doing exactly what the Lord wants in that situation. We tend to miss plenty of opportunities or only go through them half heartedly. It’s hard. God gives us plenty of chances to share the word, work on a certain trait, grow closer to Him, and more, yet we are blind to some of this. However, when we start looking we will begin to find these occasions, and with prayer God may open our eyes. No longer, shall we hear God’s voice and not listen, but instead do as it says and make the most of it.

Let’s follow Christ and make the most out of every opportunity and be aware of the verse from Ephesians. When we do this, how can we possibly waste legitimate time? It’s not going to be easy. It’s going to take guts, courage, boldness, risks, and a heart after God. Imagine the difference such a thing could make.  We are never going to be perfect at this, but we can always improve. I hope you take the challenge, and stop wasting precious time.

Bible Study Confusion

PICTURE THIS:

Jonny and his girlfriend Sally went on a date at one of their favorite restaurants and then afterwards went to the theater to view a movie. The next night, they did the exact same thing, and the day after that nothing changed. They continued going to the same diner, ordering the same food, and watching the same movie every single night. Their conversation varied little throughout the dates.

THINK:

After a while or a week wouldn’t this become boring?

How long do think this relationship will last?

In 2004, Beachbody LLC released its renowned home workout program P90X created by Tony Horton. To date, they have sold over three-million copies and grossed over 500 million dollars. Plenty of Americans, including myself, have transformed their bodies and lives in 90 days with the program. The routine’s secret? Muscle Confusion. This supposedly prevents your body from entering a plateau stage by introducing new moves to continue your body’s progress. By constantly changing the routines, your body never gets used to the workouts and continues to grow. Using cross-training and other methods, it will turn you into the “best shape of your life.”  It also focuses on proper nutrition although some people choose to neglect this part, which greatly diminishes the results.

So what do these things have to do with each other? In the first, Jonny and Sally do the same ting which we can all assume ends with a pathetic relationship or breakup. In the next, P90X uses Muscles Confusion to keep things fresh and your body from entering a plateau, unlike the relationship.

Like Jonny and Sally have a relationship with each other, we should have one with Christ. However, not one like the characters in the story. How well do you think Jonny and Sally really know each other? Not well, I presume since they always do the same thing. Now, this would be the equivalent of reading the same Bible passage every quiet time. You would know that portion of Scripture quite well, but you would miss out on the rest of it! Most of us probably read different scriptures so this isn’t a issue, but how many times have you lost interest in the Word, or even zoned out* during the reading? Perhaps we should change our Bible studies up once in a while.

We are supposed to have a relationship with God, right? Know the Lord, and not just information about Him.  Go to church every Sunday and read our Bible every day. The same stuff. Sure, you can change it up a little bit. Read a different Bible book, listen to a different sermon at church, but in the end it’s all similar. Eventually, you might reach a plateau and end up having an uninteresting, lackluster relationship with the One who gave you breath. What good is that? Maybe you need to add a little variety, some Bible Study Confusion. Say you shake it up a little bit with your daily devotions. Don’t do the same thing every day. Change your routine so you don’t reach a plateau, just like in P90X. One day read a chapter, the next watch a video discussing part of God’s character, after that worship the Lord by singing along to music on your iPod, and then maybe even dissect a Christian song. The list goes on and on. One to get you started is at the end, but I encourage you start your own.

            So maybe pick something off the list one day and pick something else the next. Sure you could read through the entire Bible in one year, but, while it would be beneficial, it isn’t necessary. Heck, you could even take a day off every once in a while. P90X even allows for a day off. However, you can’t totally neglect the Bible. It is God’s word and the most important book in the word. Most of the time, when people read through the Bible, they read it like any other book. You need to ask questions, figure out how the words apply to you. Don’t read it normally. Maybe studying the Bible works perfectly fine for you. For others, they need change.

            If you’re unsure about this whole idea, simply pray about. It’s important to note you don’t have to change every day, and that might actually be a bad idea. When reading the Bible or a book about it, I prefer to finish that book before switching it up**. Now, if I were to read that piece for an entire year and not do anything, it could seriously hold me back. If you find yourself staring at the clock during your devos wondering if thirty minutes is up yet, you might want to give this a try.  The best part is you don’t have to do the same amount of time every day either! It’s always good to throw those five minute ones in as well as the hour or longer devos. However, thirty minutes is about average and a good amount of time to spend daily.

            I encourage you to give it a try. It may not work for you. Make sure you really get to know God and not just about Him. Don’t be a phony, I mean, even the demons believe in God***.  Make your date with God interesting unlike Jonny and Sally. I don’t exactly know how muscle confusion works on the mind and heart, but it’s always good to change things up every once in a while. We all eat different food, movies, sports, hobbies, and so on and so forth. Remember, to get to know somebody you have to talk to them and they to you so have a chat with God and give Him time to respond. If you have any questions go ahead and ask!

IDEAS:

Prayer:

Prayer run/walk (Take a jog or a walk and talk to God in the process)

Nature Prayer (Go find a seat at a beautiful picturesque spot in nature and talk to God)

PRAYER JOURNAL

Devo:

 You can find all sorts of devos on the internet, just make sure they are based on the Bible and not lies.

Group Devos (Get a group of buddies)

One on One (Find somebody whether a leader, friend, or somebody you look up to and ask them questions and talk about the Bible)

History:

Google Bible History

Read a historical book on the Bible

Books:

Read a book that is based on a Bible and gives good instruction (One of my favorite options, a book I recommend is Not a Fan by Kyle Idleman)

*I may have actually fallen asleep once…

**The library only gives you so many weeks to read books too.

*** Check out Matt. 7:22-24 and James 2:19