Waste Your Life

Story Time

When I was in high school, I decided not to date until I was eighteen. In my mind, there was no point of dating in high school because the whole purpose of dating is to evaluate one another for marriage. I didn’t want anything or anyone distracting me from my goal of leaving high school and traveling the world. I knew high school was not going to be the “best years of my life”. And I wasn’t going to let some guy “tie me down” before I got my chance to fly and explore.

Around that time, I remember sharing with a friend in my youth group that I might never get married and just dedicate my life to the Lord. Their response, “Wow, what a waste.”

Would that be a waste? What does it look like to waste your life?

Waste – use or expend carelessly, extravagantly, or to no purpose.

I think a lot of people look at this trip as a good thing: sharing the gospel, stepping out of your comfort zone, binding up the brokenhearted, it’s all good, right? Even when I share what I’m doing with unbelievers or people who are wandering from the Lord, they see the value in this journey.

However, there is another camp of people that disagree. Some believe short term missions does more harm than good (and it can) and that doing a trip like this, giving up everything, is a waste of time, money, resources, and effort. 

Why would you spend all that money to go abroad when there are people right here in the USA that need to be ministered to? Why are you asking people to pay for your trip? Why would you share Jesus with people who are “perfectly happy” with their own religion?

These are good questions that are asked with the wrong motives. Look at Judas Iscariot’s response when Mary takes a year’s wages worth of perfume and anoints Jesus’s feet.

John 12:4-6
“But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (he who was about to betray him), said, “Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?” He said this, not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief, and having charge of the moneybag he used to help himself to what was put into it.”

By human standards, this act was WASTEful. She used up all that perfume to put it on some guy’s feet that was just going to get dirty again as soon as he leaves that place.

Why would she do this? Why didn’t she help the poor? Doesn’t she love the poor? Wow, how stupid of you, Mary. You clearly didn’t think this through….

This is what condemnation sounds like and it comes directly from the enemy. We may fall for it sometimes, but God is no fool. He knows the condition of our hearts. He knows whether we care about His lost sheep or if we are just paying Him lip service. 

Galatians 6:7-9
“Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.”

But even Jesus “wasted” his life in obedience to the Father.

“By every human standard of reckoning, the cross was a waste—the waste of a young life, a prophet’s influence, a leader’s potential. We know the secret of its meaning and achievement only from God’s own statements. Similarly, the Christian’s guided life may appear as a waste—as with Paul, spending years in prison because he followed God’s guidance to Jerusalem, when he might otherwise have been evangelizing Europe the whole time. Not does God always tell us the why and wherefore of the frustrations and losses which are part and parcel of the guided life.” – Knowing God, J.I. Packer

Sometimes God’s calling doesn’t make sense and it’s not productive from our limited human perspective. I mean just look at so many stories in the Old Testament:

Story Time – Jeremiah 13 from Heidi’s Brain

Jeremiah: You want me to do what, Lord?

God: Buy a pair of underwear and put it on.

Jeremiah: Oh, okay. That’s not so bad.

God: Now I want you to go bury that underwear by the river.

Jeremiah: ?_?…K.

—long time later—

God: Go to the river right now and get the underwear.

It’s ruined as expected from being outside in the elements, but the Lord uses that in order to convey His warning, but also His heart to the people of Israel.

Jeremiah 13: 9-11
“Thus says the Lord: Even so will I spoil the pride of Judah and the great pride of Jerusalem. This evil people, who refuse to hear my words, who stubbornly follow their own heart and have gone after other gods to serve them and worship them, shall be like this loincloth, which is good for nothing. For as the loincloth clings to the waist of a man, so I made the whole house of Israel and the whole house of Judah cling to me, declares the Lord, that they might be for me a people, a name, a praise, and a glory, but they would not listen.”

When Jeremiah was telling Israel this message I don’t think he was concerned about losing his underwear, but about the heart posture of his people who were so far from God. He loves them so much. Why were they running away from Him?

Is it a waste to take a day off work just to spend time with Jesus?

Is it a waste to quit that job to pursue the calling Jesus has for you?

Is it a waste to not get married while you’re in your twenties?

Is it a waste to throw yourself into the arms of God and embrace abandonment with Him?
 

I know my answer. Do you have yours?

 

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