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.