time well spent

What counts as time well spent? 
Does it have to be something profound? Does it have to be intentional? What makes something count for eternity?

Christmas break is a good time to test myself and my use of time. I heard a statement once that the true test of a man is what he does when he has nothing to do. Ouch.
When you have "nothing to do," what do you do? Read? Play video games? Facebook?
I'm pondering what it means to spend my time well, to redeem the time as Paul describes it in Ephesians. If I have 24 hours in a day, 7 days a week, for (Lord willing) approximately 70 years...that's really not that much time.
So what's a good use of time?
Something I won't regret tomorrow. Something that I won't regret when I'm 50 years old. Something that counts for eternity.
There are only a few things that count for eternity. God. The Word of God. People.
Time really well spent is time pursuing my relationship with God and my relationship with the people He has put in my life.
My mom likes to say that quality time is both quality and quantity. Sometimes it is short, but purposeful and deep. Other times...it's just time! Time laughing together. Time chatting over coffee. Time discussing Scripture. Time singing around the piano. Time playing Legos. Time crocheting. Time rubbing shoulders. Time listening. Time crying.
Times like these are what deepen relationships with my family and friends.
Time with God is vitally important as well. Time talking to Him. Time reading His Word. Time memorizing His Word. Time sitting still and knowing that He is God. Time singing to Him. Time serving His people.
This is time well spent.
Over Christmas break, I am going to try to spend my time well. I sure won't spend every moment  wisely, but my goal is to look back with fondness, having made memories that will last a lifetime and deepening relationships that will last forever.

Wasting Your Life

I'm meditating today on what it means to waste your life.  Last year I read John Piper's book on the subject, and just found my list of quotes from the book in my documents. 

The wasted life is the life without a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples. Pg 31

Life is wasted when we do not live for the glory of God. Pg. 32

We waste our lives when we do not pray and think and dream and plan and work toward magnifying God in all spheres of life. Pg 32

If you don’t point people to God for everlasting joy, you don’t love. You waste your life. Pg 35

Every one of these quotes is blunt, to the point, and hard hitting.  In every moment our prevailing thought and desire needs to be "how can I glorify God through this?" And if there is not a way, don't do it!
I want my life to be characterized by passion: a passion to glorify God.  How often I fall short! How often I waste minutes, hours, days!  Life is short.

You don’t have to know a lot of things for your life to make a lasting difference in the world. But you do have to know the few great things that matter, perhaps just one, and then be willing to live for them and die for them. Pg 44  (emphasis mine)

Desire that your life count for something great! Long for your life to have eternal significance. Want this! Don’t coast through life without a passion. Pg 46 (emphasis mine)

If we do not learn with Paul the Christ-exalting paradoxes of life, we will squander our days pursuing bubbles that burst. Pg 63

  Don't squander your days pursuing bubbles. As C.S. Lewis said, “Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours.” And Jim Elliot agreed, "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."
You have been bought with a price, and you are not your own.  The purpose of your life is to glorify God and lift Him up!  Do not try to live life for yourself...you will not find joy.  The joyful, meaningful, passionate, fulfilling, Christ-exalting life is the only one that satisfies, and is the only one that counts for eternity.

 

God does not call us to ease, but to faithful joy. He is closing in on some of you, smiling and with tears in his eyes, knowing how much of himself he is going to show you—and how much it will cost.

Not "Normal"

My brain and heart are full of things to say this morning.  I want to wax eloquent on so many issues...but I decided on this one.

Last night my dad took my 13-year-old sister and I on a daddy daughter since my mom and younger siblings are visiting our grandparents. We went to a mall and ate supper at Panera bread. 
Do you ever feel like you stand out? Do you ever get this lightning bolt feeling that you are not normal?  I did last night.
Not that I haven't felt this before, but I haven't been to the mall in awhile:)  All over there were clusters of teenagers and middle schoolers, dressed in things that I blushed to even see and would never wear, and behaving in a way that shocked me. Not that I've never seen such things before, of course I have! I live in a fallen world, and though my parents protect us from as much of the wicked out there as possible, I am still exposed to people and the way people act and dress. 
Should I be ashamed of this?  Should I cower and cringe and say, "Oh, I guess that's just how the world is, and I must be too sheltered"?  Should I be ashamed that sin still shocks me and I abhor it? 
No! And I am not ashamed!  What breaks my heart is that these young people don't know any different! They think they are normal!
And so I ask, "What is normal?"  Or maybe the question should be,
                                                                                                           "What should be normal?"
Modesty should be normal. 
In a perfect, unfallen world, women would not dress in such a way that men can see their every curve and that would cause them to stumble.  If everyone lived as God intended for them based on what we see in the scripture, would I be keeping my eyes on the floor or ceiling as we pass by certain stores? 
Family should be normal.
How many families did I see at the mall last night, one, two? And those were young couples who were dragging their screaming children through to the movie theater.  I saw many clusters of young people, hanging all over one another, and couples who I can't imagine were married, and groups of middle aged ladies taking a break from hectic schedules by gossiping with their friends and spending their husband's hard-earned money....okay, so they may not all be like that!  But where are the families? Does the fact that I see few families encourage me to spend my time at the mall? Or should the fact it doesn't seem like a family event discourage me from frequenting it?
My family is important to me, and I believe that it is the building block of society.  But the mall and all places like it are focused on self! Not that you can't have a good time there (we did!) but it is not an atmosphere that encourages building relationships or glorifying Christ!
Contentment should be normal.
"Now godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content!" 1 Timothy 6:6-7
I really don't intend to give a guilt trip to anyone who enjoys a trip to the mall, I really don't! But when we really think and consider what the mall teaches us....it might help us question whether it is a valuable use of time!  ("Do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is, redeeming the time because the days are evil.")
If you think that the mall (or more precisely, the world's way of seeing things) is not trying to draw you in, to make you want more and more and to think that you can't be happy without that pair of shoes....you're wrong.  We must be sober and vigilant because we are not going for a picnic in the park...we're in a war! And the enemy is not honest or kind, but deceitful and sneaky and evil! The world ( and the Father of it) loves to see us distracted from what really matters: Christ! Why? Because when we are content with Christ, we do not need the things of the world!
I am in the midst of reading, "The Pursuit of God," by A.W. Tozer for the second time, and yesterday I was struck by this thought. "The man who has God for his treasure has all things in One."
Being content in Christ does not mean that we are excluded from having fun, or rejoicing, or being passionate about anything else, but when we are wholly committed to following Christ, He gives us the capacity to enjoy much! 

I need to get off the computer, but in closing, consider that we typically judge "normalcy" by the company we keep.  If our friends act or dress in a certain way, we think that is normal.  But what if we weren't bound by "normalcy" at all, what if instead of thinking "do I fit in or stick out?" we thought, "How does my behavior reflect on Christ and my family? Can people tell instantly that something about me is different and that I have a freedom to not be normal?"

Joh 15:18:19 "If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you."
If Jesus says we should not be surprised that the world hates us, why should we be surprised if the world looks at us funny, or be cause we are different than them? 

Eph 5:1 "Therefore be imitators of God as dear children."
Who are we trying to mimic, the world or Jesus Christ?

To him it is sin...

"Therefore to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him IT IS SIN." James 4:17

Often I think to myself, that though there are many bad things I could do, if I don't do them, then I'm doing well, then I'm pleasing God.  But if I strive to not do something, but don't replace that time and energy with something else, then I'm still wasting my time.  Even worse than just "wasting time"...it is sin! 
That really changes your way of looking at what you do with your time, that is, if you actually let yourself consider it. When the thought comes into your mind of a good thing you should do (whether it is check the laundry, give your family member a hug, tell that neighbor about Christ) it's not just NOT doing something good, it is sin. 

"So then each one shall give an account of himself to God!" Rom. 14:12

I'm afraid that this is an area I am often guilty in, and these things will be on my record before Christ at the judgement seat.  I would be sorrowful indeed, if the Lord were to say to me, "Well done at what you actually did, but look at all the things I gave you opportunity to do that you did not choose to do."
When we choose NOT to do a good thing, we do a wrong thing.  Choose wisely.