What a Waste!

We may be able to evaluate what people do, but we cannot evaluate the motive of why they do it. Only God can.

Some believers give up certain pleasures and activities because they don’t want their spiritual lives dulled. Someone might look at them and say, "What a waste! They missed out big time!"

Or, when someone with a promising career ahead decides instead to go to a developing nation as a missionary, someone might say, "What a waste!"

Still others will decide to simply live for themselves and do whatever they want to do with their lives. And then God will say, "What a waste!"

Let’s not be so quick to judge another person’s heart. We can’t see his or her heart. Rather, let’s judge our own hearts and why we do things. The apostle Paul wrote to the believers at Corinth, "Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and reveal the counsels of the hearts. Then each one’s praise will come from God" (1 Corinthians 4:5).

I think that one day, the people who took the time for God’s Word, for worship, and for serving the Lord will be glad they did. And I also think the people who didn’t take time for those things will realize how much they wasted their lives.

It has been said, "I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. What I can do, I ought to do. And what I ought to do, by the grace of God, I will do."

We can’t change the past. But we can decide what we are going to do in the present and how we are going to live in the future.