A confession & learning.
I must confess, that I am a tea lover. There are few who are not. I must also confess something about the way I used to drink tea.
I enjoy it while drinking, and to maximize the enjoyment of every sip, I ended up being a bit greedy. I had the bad habit of not drinking the tea in one go since I didn't want the tea to get over so fast. So, there would always be some left over to drink after a while. The problem is that the cold leftover is easily forgotten, and I end up rushing for work leaving it in the glass, which gets thrown away eventually. Again, it's not too much, but it's a little tea that's wasted - every day. My rough calculations convinced me that If I was wasting at least 15ml of tea every day, in a year the amount of tea that went down the sink was over 5 liters! I didn't want to proceed with the calculation of how much tea I wasted over the last few years.
The lesson
It is the same with our life. We get a bit too greedy about squeezing pleasure from anything and everything. Pleasure gets too much priority and usually, a good amount of life ends up getting wasted at the end. It's not that God doesn't want us to have pleasure in life. In fact, it is in the presence of God that we find the fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore. (Psalm 16:11)
But the mistake comes when we give too much of importance to our pleasure and happiness. From the way we think and take decisions, it is clear that we think too much about pleasure. Pleasure or pleasure-giving things have become the gods in many of our lives. We try to preserve a lot for the future in the name of pleasure and happiness, which is eventually unused and thrown away - our time, our energy, our money etc. That is why Jesus talked about the rich fool who was storing up for his future without knowing that his life was soon to end. It's also for the same reason Jesus taught his disciples to pray for their daily bread, and Paul said that for him life in a word was Christ.
It is clear that we think too much about pleasure.
Few Markers
If you don't want your life wasted, Here are some simple, straightforward & right markers to stick to in life, prescribed in God's word.
You and I were made to know God, love Him, live for Him, and bring forth His glory. (John 17:3)
We have a call to serve the people around us in the best way possible. (Matt 23:11)
We have a high calling to go out and share the gospel with the whole world. (Mark 16:15)
We are called to be cheerful givers. We should be looking for ways to give rather than keep. (2 Cor 9:6-7)
We are to seek first the Kingdom of God and live in that Joy which is always a product of doing so. (Matt 6:33)
We are to continually seek to make eternal investments, knowing that eternity is the longer and more important part of our existence. (Matt 6:20)
We ought to live knowing that we do not belong to ourselves but to Christ. He paid the price so that we may have life. (1 Cor 6:19)
The path we must take is the same that our Master has taken - the one of sacrifice, self-denial, and pure obedience to the Father. (Luke 9:23)
We will be held accountable for what ends up getting used & wasted. (Rom 14:12)
Live life in such a way that you have been poured out as a drink offering. (2 Tim 4:6)
We will be rewarded for our faithful work here, with eternal and permanent treasures in heaven. (Luke 6:23)
I recently changed the way I drink tea. And a few years back, I changed the way I lived my life. As I came to know Jesus - I started taking the Bible seriously and trying to live by it. Though I am far from perfect, I must say that there is immense joy and peace in living out our lives in obedience to Him. After all, if we all believe we are going to meet Jesus on the other side of life, wouldn't we all want to have given Him everything we could have? May none of us have any part of it wasted.
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