Wasting Perfectly Good Time - Neil Leonard
I love that Pastor Chris used the phrase “wasting time” when preaching about service towards the end of the summer...
Serving others is anything but efficient. It’s messy. It involves a lot of time that is not “optimized."
Jesus ‘wasted’ lots of perfectly good time—on people with messy lives and with God. He lived an unhurried, interruptible life, marked by rhythms of engagement and retreat.
If you have committed to follow Jesus as your Lord and Rabbi, you have committed to learn from both his teachings and his lifestyle, emulating him in the way you live your life and structure your earthly time.
Most everything involved in discipleship can be viewed by people as a “waste of time." What Jesus invites us to do is not efficient as the world sees it. Because the age of this world is destined for destruction, it brings with it an urgency to make the most of each second, each hour, each day. This is the environment and mindset in which we are surrounded and inundated with daily.
Yet, when we commit to follow Jesus, we commit to make his perspective ours, and his kingdom our reality.
Unlike the world around us, his kingdom does not expire. In fact, it overcomes the world!
For that which is urgent to the world, his kingdom has infinite patience. What is considered infinitely valuable in his kingdom, the world puts little stock in.
To live for the kingdom is to learn to waste perfectly good time.
Serving others is anything but efficient. It’s messy. It involves a lot of time that is not “optimized."
Jesus ‘wasted’ lots of perfectly good time—on people with messy lives and with God. He lived an unhurried, interruptible life, marked by rhythms of engagement and retreat.
If you have committed to follow Jesus as your Lord and Rabbi, you have committed to learn from both his teachings and his lifestyle, emulating him in the way you live your life and structure your earthly time.
Most everything involved in discipleship can be viewed by people as a “waste of time." What Jesus invites us to do is not efficient as the world sees it. Because the age of this world is destined for destruction, it brings with it an urgency to make the most of each second, each hour, each day. This is the environment and mindset in which we are surrounded and inundated with daily.
Yet, when we commit to follow Jesus, we commit to make his perspective ours, and his kingdom our reality.
Unlike the world around us, his kingdom does not expire. In fact, it overcomes the world!
For that which is urgent to the world, his kingdom has infinite patience. What is considered infinitely valuable in his kingdom, the world puts little stock in.
To live for the kingdom is to learn to waste perfectly good time.
Prayer is the chief way we do this. When we ‘waste’ time with God in prayer, we place our hope and trust in him as we learn to let go of our own agendas and allow him to give us his.
We are reminded of his unfaltering love for us, providing a peace and confidence that goes deep to our core and leads us out of worry, greed, people-pleasing, and insert-the-blank for your tendency du jour.
Out of this place of prayerful stillness, we learn to serve others with the heart of the Father himself. We learn to give of ourselves joyfully and freely, as Jesus gives to us. We learn to tune in to the presence and power of the Spirit, who goes before and with us to empower and equip us to love with abandon.
Waste some perfectly good time with God this week. Learn to do it every day. Make time in a way that works for you to simply be with him, be still, and be loved.
You will be transformed, slowly, over time.
To follow Jesus is to be invited to count the cost (Luke 14:28-33), to weigh the outcomes of ‘optimized time’ vs. ‘wasted time.’ They lead to very different destinations and produce very different results, and the decision of which to choose is before you each and every day.
When Mary sat at Jesus's feet, she was completely wasting time in the eyes of her sister, Martha. There were things to be done; a big meal to be prepped! First things first, right?
Jesus gently corrects his good friend; “My dear Martha, you are worried and upset over all these details! There is only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it, and it will not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:38-42).
May you likewise discover the one thing worth being concerned about, and learn to make it first in your life, no matter how much you may be tempted to feel like you are wasting perfectly good time!
Neil Leonard
Short North Deacon of Prayer and Worship
Veritas Community Church
We are reminded of his unfaltering love for us, providing a peace and confidence that goes deep to our core and leads us out of worry, greed, people-pleasing, and insert-the-blank for your tendency du jour.
Out of this place of prayerful stillness, we learn to serve others with the heart of the Father himself. We learn to give of ourselves joyfully and freely, as Jesus gives to us. We learn to tune in to the presence and power of the Spirit, who goes before and with us to empower and equip us to love with abandon.
Waste some perfectly good time with God this week. Learn to do it every day. Make time in a way that works for you to simply be with him, be still, and be loved.
You will be transformed, slowly, over time.
To follow Jesus is to be invited to count the cost (Luke 14:28-33), to weigh the outcomes of ‘optimized time’ vs. ‘wasted time.’ They lead to very different destinations and produce very different results, and the decision of which to choose is before you each and every day.
When Mary sat at Jesus's feet, she was completely wasting time in the eyes of her sister, Martha. There were things to be done; a big meal to be prepped! First things first, right?
Jesus gently corrects his good friend; “My dear Martha, you are worried and upset over all these details! There is only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it, and it will not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:38-42).
May you likewise discover the one thing worth being concerned about, and learn to make it first in your life, no matter how much you may be tempted to feel like you are wasting perfectly good time!
Neil Leonard
Short North Deacon of Prayer and Worship
Veritas Community Church
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