Many people want their lives to count for something. They might even go to great lengths to make that happen. These type of people are persistent. They stay on course. They keep their eye on the goal. They refuse to let anything interfere with them that would be distracting.
However, there are those people that have been granted the privilege of living on this planet and do not value the opportunity. In some cases, it might be that they think that they are special when they are not. Perhaps they have grandiose ideas of themselves and their ideas. Whatever the reason, unfortunately there are those who waste their lives to the point where their living becomes of no positive value. They may not even realize how they are flushing away chances.
Once opportunities are lost, they are so irretrievable. So much regret can accompany the rest of life. The loss and regret can go to great lengths. There are people in the Bible and people in our modern era that fit this category.
Esau is a good example of a man who gave his inheritance away just for a bowl of stew. Later in his life we find that he did become prosperous, but we do not know what experiences he had to circumvent so that he might be reunited with his treacherous brother Jacob. In the New Testament, the world-renowned Judas is a man who thought he knew better than Jesus and therefore betrayed him. He had many regrets that led him to commit suicide. In our modern era, Prince Andrew of the royal family of England could be considered penniless and homeless were it not for the good graces of the rest of the family. He wasted all his privileges and royal standing on whims.
It is easy to waste our lives if we are not careful. It is easy to have our lives to have no actual value to this world. It is easy to allow ourselves as we succumb to distraction that at the end of the road, we have accomplished nothing of eternal value. Jesus warned not to put our treasures on the things of this world that can be corrupted but to invest in eternity which will never be tarnished.
It is a good thing to repeatedly evaluate where we stand in this world. What direction are we headed. What accomplishments have we made. How well have we listened to God through the Bible and the Holy Spirit. Contrary wise, are the decisions we make only for ourselves out of an inflated ego. God cannot use anyone but the humble who will submit themselves to him for his purposes. God cannot use anyone who makes themselves their own god.
It is up to us to make the seconds and minutes and hours and weeks and months and years to count for God and others. We are ambassadors for God. We are the Bible to the rest of the world as they read our lives. Guidance from the Holy Spirit is the requirement for us to make our lives count. We are wasting our lives if how we live is based on our own assumptions of right and wrong, of good and evil, and what is the ultimate final authority.
Christian Writer 