Wasted Time?

What would people say about me if I died tonight?  Morbid, I know.  Let me explain.

Tonight was the Welcome Convocation for the new students here at Valley Forge.  Today was a busy day welcoming new students, showing them around, etc.  It was busy but fun!  At the service though, I had some mega “Holy Spirit conviction” that I felt like blogging about.

FOR MY GOOD

Your Love Never Fails is an awesome song.  The bridge goes, “You make all things work together for my good,” repeated over and over again.  This is taken from Romans 8:28, “And we know that God causes all things to work together for the good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose” (NASB).

Wow, did that speak to me.  The very first line was enough.  In a moment, I felt like I was able to see my entire life over the past year, and how much of it I just waste away.  I realized how utterly undeserving I am of God, and all of His blessings.  Singing that He makes “all things work together for my good” was so humbling.  I don’t really know how else to describe it.

UNTAPPED POTENTIAL

Throughout the message, I also had this thought: what would people say about me if I died tonight?  Although a lot would be said, I feel like the number one thing would be, “he had such potential.”

I guess you could say that kind of makes sense, being that I’m young and all.  But as I was thinking about this, I realized that I really frame my life with this mindset.  So much of the “great things” I’m going to do for God is all in the future.  When I think of giving my entire life over to God, and the greatest parts of my life, it’s totally future-oriented.  And to a degree, this is good.  I think our dreams should always be bigger than our memories.

But at the same time, this cannot be an excuse to just sit around.  God has something for us now.  God has determined for us to live in this exact time (Acts 17:26)!  He wants us to live out our full potential everyday!  If I were to die tonight, my goal is that people would say, "he DID so much with the time he had!"

Thinking of this while I was in the chapel today was once again, so humbling.  There’s so much more God wants to do in my life, and I waste countless hours doing other things.  I just felt like I’ve wasted precious time, and if I were suddenly to die tonight or something, I wouldn’t be able to say I’ve used the most recent of my time very effectively.

SOME TAKE AWAYS

All in all, I need to spend some time in prayer about these subjects.  I thought that by writing these out I would be able to point them out better for myself.  And perhaps this will even speak to you as well!

“Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil. So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is,” (Ephesians 5:15-17 NASB).