Monday, June 06, 2005

No More Wasted Time

Life at Work
The Eagles sing in “Wasted Time” about a girl who has given herself in a number of relationships that have ultimately faltered. She is distraught over having no close relationship after long-time personal, emotional investments. Having reminisced, Henley sings:

So you can get on with your search, baby,
And I can get on with mine
And maybe someday we will find,
That it wasn’t really wasted time.


We aren’t always concerned about wasting time while we are wasting the time. Something happens periodically, though, that causes us to reflect; and when we realize that time will be short, or has gone by too quickly, we mourn wasted time.

Peter wrote about wasted time in a letter to people who had invested part of their lives in wicked ways. He wrote, “For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do-living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry…” (1 Peter 4:3). Paul asked the Christians in Rome why returning to the kind of life in which they found shame and death would even cross their minds. He told them that the beneficial life was the one in which the slave to God would be led to holiness and to the great ending: eternal life.

I don’t want to say, “Get on with your search, and I can get on with mine.” I want to tell you instead that Jesus has called us to the abundant life. For either of us to pursue any life course without heaven as the goal will prove to be wasted time. I don’t want to waste anymore time! Do you? That’s Life at Work!

1 comment:

JD said...

It's a haunting song ... I go through times when I listen to it several times over the course of a week. Only God knows the hours wasted in my own life ... and the regret over them. You're right ... the abundant life is not wasted time ... but we allow ourselves to be decieved into wasting the time God gives us. It's a good reflection to be aware of this.