Time Lost is Time Lost - But, ah, the Time Ahead

On my desk at home are various pictures of my family in different stages of our life. 

The interesting thing is the pictures are somewhat random moments in my family’s life  - one “selfie” of my wife and me before we knew to call it a selfie (we had been married about 4 ½ months).  Others show my sons at different ages and one shows me and my four sisters on my 40^th birthday.

Why these particular pictures?  No idea.   But they got me thinking that, wow, life moves awfully quickly.  They also got me thinking about how often I waste time on the unimportant, the trivial, the silly, the downright nonsensical.  For instance, I’ve played 2239 games of Solitaire since I bought my current laptop about three years ago.  Granted, each game takes only about a minute and a half – still that adds up to 3358.50 minutes – over 56 hours – two days and 8 hours for what?  Moments of pleasure?  Sheer escapism?  Pathetic.

Imagine if I had spent 56 hours in prayer – what might have happened?  Might my prayers have been the reason someone other than The Donald and Hillary are the nominees for president?  Maybe not, but who knows?  Jesus made some pretty extravagant promises about what God would do in response to our prayers . . .  Closer to home, might those prayers have helped draw my sons closer to Christ?  How about my wife?  Me?

On the other side of the coin, I’ve been preaching through the book of Mark at a local assisted living center and have accumulated 5166 minutes on my sermon outlines  That’s 510 minutes on each chapter, or about 8 ½ hours per chapter.  That doesn’t include outside reading, prayer, and contemplation – that’s just editing time for sermon outlines.  So, I suppose, one might say it balances out.

But that’s not true, is it?  I don’t get to say to God – look bud, I’ve got almost 2000 more minutes in my review of Mark than I have in Solitaire, so don’t judge me, man!  The time is gone, whatever I’ve done with it.  Yet, don’t we tend toward that view in our Christian life?  Maybe you don’t – but I do.  I put things on scales of my own making, then try to justify my less than admirable (or downright sinful and awful) conduct with my good works.  However, God simply doesn’t work that way.  He didn’t have to give the Israelites the promised land, but he did.  He didn’t have to give them a human king, but he did.  He didn’t have to bring them back to the promised land after their extended stay in Babylon, but he did.  He didn’t have to send his Son as the promised Messiah, who would come to take the punishment for the sins of all he came to save, but he did.  He doesn’t have to return to take the faithful to heaven, but he will.

God doesn’t owe us a thing.  He isn’t obligated to balance things on the scales of justice.  We are his creation.  This blog post doesn’t get to ask me for justice.  I created it; I get to post it or not; I get to edit it or not; I get to delete it or not.  I owe it nothing.  The analogy isn’t perfect, but the point remains.  We are God’s to do with as he chooses – he is sovereign, so we don’t have any right to any justice except that which he provides to us. 

Yet, yet, yet, and this is the glorious part of it, God often graces us with mercy rather than justice.  Like with the Israelites – they didn’t deserve any of the good things they got.  The scales, if properly balanced, would have worked out against them.  Nonetheless, God put his thumb on those scales and, instead of finding the Israelites wanting, granted them grace they didn't merit. 

So, even though I’ve wasted too much time on solitaire (and other nonsense) it doesn’t mean I have to keep doing so.  Moreover, I don’t have to constantly bash myself for my stupidity.

Paul put it rightly: “but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Jesus Christ.”  Philippians 3:13 – 14.

The time lost is time lost.

But, ah, the time ahead – the prize of the upward call of God in Jesus Christ – that’s a time to anticipate and savor.  And since God has put his thumb on the scale for me by sending Jesus, I’m going to take advantage of his good grace and “press on toward the goal.”

I don’t know exactly what this means going forward, but it has to mean that I spend my time more wisely.  I can pray more; I can read my Bible more; I can witness more; I can be kinder more; I can spend more time with my family.  This doesn’t tip the scale any more than God already has, but I’ll never have to look back again and count up hours wasted.

Twenty years from now (if I have that much time), maybe I’ll see a picture on my desk and they’ll show a grizzled 53 year old at his keyboard, and I’ll say, thank God for those 3358.50 minutes in prayer.