A Waste of Time

How much time do we waste in life?

We scroll when we should be cleaning up the kitchen. We go for a pamper session when we should be taking care of the garden. That's not to say we can’t do those things, but are we prioritising well?

If we’re not prioritising the right things, we’re not only wasting time, we’re losing time.

Lately, God has been convicting me about wasting time – and showing me the penalty of losing time. His tender care towards me is correcting me in small and big things. I can make excuses. I can justify why and what and when. But at the end of the day, His lessons are vital for me to receive if I want to gain ground in my life and go from strength to strength.

Small things can be significant.

God desires we’re diligent in the small things so we will be able to surrender the big things.

Without that mindset we make wrong choices. Wrong choices may not seem big at the time, but our attitude, over time, turns small things into big things.

If we’re not growing, we're sliding.

There are so many stories in the bible that speak to the way people followed their own thinking, rather than the inclinations of the Holy Spirit. They wound up doing things that were just a waste of time. Not only that, those things derailed them. That can happen to us too. There’s a valuable lesson here.

In the story of Elijah, Elisha, and the company of prophets (2 Kings 2), Elijah was taken up to heaven. Elisha had been standing next to him, and the company of prophets had been standing a distance away, watching. They all knew God was taking him that day. After Elijah was raptured, the company of prophets came to Elisha and said they wanted to go and look for Elijah – to see if they could find him. Just in case the horses and chariot of fire had flung him out of its whirlwind. Just in case God had changed his mind and dropped him somewhere else.

2 Kings 2:16-18 (NIV)

“No,” Elisha replied, “do not send them.”

But they persisted until he was too embarrassed to refuse. So he said, “Send them.” And they sent fifty men, who searched for three days but did not find him. When they returned to Elisha, who was staying in Jericho, he said to them, “Didn’t I tell you not to go?”

What a waste of time. Elisha knew, but the prophets, who had seen what happened, and had known God was taking Elijah, didn’t want to believe it. They let their will rule and decide they should take matters into their own hands. Elisha didn’t get swept up in their consternation. He knew, but let them go on their quest – a big group – because they didn’t want to listen to him.

A bit like what can happen between us and God. We don't want to listen, we justify our actions, and God will let us go off and do what we want to do... and then come back to him and say, 'ooops, I should have known better. I'm sorry LORD'.

Jeraboam is a great example of presumptuous behaviour too, but with far more reaching consequences. 1 Kings 12 details his lack of wisdom, his pride, and possibly his fear.

God gave him clear instructions and choices.

If he trusted God, his life and the generations ahead of him would see God's blessing. If he followed his own will, catastrophe would follow him, the next four generations, and the whole of Israel.

He chose his will.

He wanted the throne that God had given him, but He didn’t trust God’s ways to keep it. That wasn’t just a waste of time, the penalty of losing time affected him and thousands of others. Jeraboam's personal choices had astronomically negative effects for the legacy to his family and a whole nation, for years to come.

Another story in 1 Kings 13 tells of Jeraboam, a young man of God and an old prophet. At first, the man of God follows God’s instructions to the letter when he delivers a message to Jeraboam, and God’s protection is over him. But on the way home, for some reason, an old prophet stands in his way and manages to dissuade him from fulfilling God’s instructions.

The consequences of his negligence cost him his life.

Although the old prophet was the one who lied to him, he ends up burying the young man of God in his own tomb, and grieves for him. It’s a story in the bible I just don’t understand, but the lesson is clear. Following the persuasion of someone he thought maybe knew better than he, the young man of God followed his will, rather than the clear instructions God gave him. That was not only a waste of time, the penalty of losing time was his life. He died because of it.

God’s word remained true.

The lesson, as I hear God clearly instructing me, is to follow His instructions to the letter. Some of His instructions are easier to understand than others. But trusting in God’s divine plan, and faithfulness to me – and my family – will, I know, keep me on the right path for my life, and our lives.

God says, do not squander this time. Do not squander these instructions. Follow them to the letter, because you know they are given for your benefit. Be conscientious, be diligent, be trusting, and know that the consequences if you aren’t, will be to your detriment. Walk by faith, not by sight. Hear my words to you. Follow them with all diligence. Don’t be concerned by others’ expectations. I know where I am taking you. Don’t look back and don’t try and reclaim what you had before, or what you were working toward. Don’t go back to any of it, even what was good. It is not for you now. It is not for the things I have for your future. See, I am doing a new thing. Do you not perceive it? I want to bless you now. I want you to see what I have called you to fulfil in your life.

If that resonates with you, take it as God’s word to you, too.

Before Elisha was called, he had been ploughing land. Have you been ploughing land? When God called him, through Elijah, he burned the yoke (that which tied him to his past), killed the oxen (his livelihood) and fed (blessed) the people around him before moving on, into God’s future for him.

He made sure there was no provision to go back.

That is inspiring to me. It was pivotal to his success. Much of the point of his story, is that it wasn’t only about his obedience and his life. Without his obedience (and Elijah’s before him, and many other examples in the bible) the nation of Israel wouldn’t have benefited.

Luke 9:62 (AMP)

But Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back [to the things left behind] is fit for the kingdom of God.”

It’s such a gift to be guided and ushered through life by the Spirit of God. It’s such a gift to have ‘inside knowledge’ of what will be good for us. These stories show us it’s not only for us that God requires our obedience. It’s for other people whose lives we will touch, and even have access to change, because of what God does through us.

The story of The Widows Oil (2 Kings 4) is one of my favourites in the Old Testament. This is a story where God shows His personal care for the benefit of one little family. A single mother was left destitute, as many single mothers can relate to, and God miraculously provided for them, through her obedience and willingness to follow His instructions to the letter.

We might think that only affected them. They would have thought that their story had no farther-reaching consequences. But we’d be wrong, as they would have. How many millions of people over the centuries have read their story and been encouraged, even propelled, by it? People like me. Perhaps like you, too.

God’s ability to provide for us, and to fulfil His purpose in our lives is dependent on our willingness to obey and follow His instructions to the letter. We don’t have to say our mistakes have been a waste of time, even though we may have lost time. God can use them for greater good.

We can learn from what's gone before. We can listen now. We can hear now. We can follow now. We can succeed. If we refuse to take our eyes off Him.

Who knows what your willingness to follow God’s instructions to the letter, and obey, might accomplish not only in your life, but other people’s lives too?