Live on Purpose

Disclaimer:  Everyone has bad days and the following is based on one of those days.

I have been married to my beautiful wife for almost 25 years now and we have been together for close to 27 and known each other for about 32.   We have 2 grown children who are both out of the house.  We hardly ever “argue” anymore.  Call it growth.  Call it less to argue about.  Whatever.  It is a win in my book.  

This writing is not about one of those non-argument days.  

Details are not needed in this story, but you do need to know that this argument started at about 10 AM on a Saturday and found no resolution until early evening on that same day.  Now, this is true, primarily because I am selfish when it comes to these situations and I like to “stand my ground” and “win.”  That sort of thing.  I am a lot better at not being like this than I used to but I still fall into it every once in a while.

Anyway.  The bulk of our Saturday (the only day we exclusively have together) was spent in silence.  We had a social obligation right in the middle of the day and that was spent with each of us basically talking to other people.  It was a rough one.

To make a very long, ugly story short, sometime that evening, we came together and talked through the issues that led to this day and we determined that whatever the reasons, they were not worth the “wasted moments” that we had endured. 

We made kind of a marriage pact in that moment to never allow selfishness or pride or stubbornness to steal away moments from our marriage ever again.  So, now, when something flairs up we remind each other about wasted moments.

I wonder if we as believers have these kind of “wasted moments” in our life with Christ.  How often are we selfish, stubborn or too prideful to admit that we are not where we should be in our relationship with Jesus?  

We must understand that our lives are too short to waste moments like this.  

James 4:14 “How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow?  Your life is like the morning fog – it’s here a little while, then it’s gone.” NLT

Can you identify wasted moments in your life with Christ?  The good news is – YOU ARE NOT ALONE.

The pages of Scripture are filled with men and women who wasted moments in their walk with the Lord.

The one I think about more often than not is King David.  David wasted moments of his life with the God, who had chosen him, because of his arrogance, his entitled attitude and his spiritual blindness.

He took something (actually someone) that wasn’t his to take, defiled her and then did his best to diffuse the bad situation by making it worse.  These wasted moments included adultery, deceit, murder, pride and lies. It was ugly and wasted moments usually are.

His relationship with God was hurting and he was blind to the fact that he had done it to himself until he was confronted by the prophet Nathan and convicted by God.

He then wrote Psalm 51 as a response to this conviction.

Psalm 51:10, 12 Create in me a clean heart, O God.  Renew a loyal spirit within me…RESTORE TO ME the joy of your salvation and make me willing to obey you. NLT

I love what he asks in v 12.  “Restore to me the joy of Your salvation…”. In other words, “give me back the moments I wasted thinking I could make a better way for myself.”

In other words, “I have been miserable and that is my fault and this has led to wasted moments.  Help me to not only remember your salvation in my life, but help me to remember my response is obedience to you.”

David realized that he had wasted precious moments and now he wanted them back.

I can identify with David.  So often I am living on my own terms, doing what I want to do and this, more often than not, leads to wasted moments in my walk with Christ.

When I do what I want – when I live on my own terms – I most often am doing what it takes to keep myself comfortable.  When I am pursuing my own will, I am not obeying the will of the one I have promised to follow.  

The result:  I waste moments of obedience that could have led to God getting glory.

 I waste moments of following Jesus that could have led to someone hearing the gospel.

I waste moments of leading others to him. 

I waste moments of the “abundant’ life that He promised.  

So I am striving to not waste moments – not only with my wife, but also with my Savior.  God has so much more to offer us than we could ever get for ourselves and God never offers us wasted moments – He can’t.  He gives good, perfect (not necessarily easy, but always rewarding) moments as we follow Him.