AIN'T WASTIN' TIME NO MORE

Ephesians 5: 15 – 21
When I first got sober, I found myself searching for spiritual fulfillment. I tried all the new age bologna, looked at ancient eastern religions, I even thought that I needed to convert to Catholicism because I felt that I needed a spiritual community, when really all I was doing was searching for a relationship with God. I read all kinds of foolish books on the subjects of spiritual, peaceful living. One of my favorite books at this time endeavored to explain the eastern religion called Taoism. The title of the book was; “The Tao of Pooh”. The author used all the characters from the Winnie the Pooh stories as examples of the Taoist theory. The one theory from that book that I retained was;
“ You can't save time, you can only spend it. So spend it wisely”.
Paul wrote similar words to the church at Ephesus a couple of thousand years before Winnie the Pooh about wasting time
15 Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise,
16 making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.
17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.
The Greek scholar Kenneth Wuest suggests that this refers to time in its “strategic, opportune seasons” and means “making a wise and sacred use of every opportunity for doing good.”
I will often ask myself; “Why did I spend my time so foolishly looking for God in all the wrong places”?
I was not spending my time wisely, I was wasting my time and I'm sure that the enemy loved it, I'm sure that he laughed quietly to himself as I, like so many others, searched everywhere but the right place for truth. I was not making a wise sacred use of every opportunity.
Once again I find myself not having an ending for this teaching and am trying to just wrap it up in a nice pretty bow.
We all know how to waste time, we've done it all our lives, but it's time to make a change.
We can all put down the video games and ipods ans pick up a book or talk to someone sitting next us. Who knows, maybe by doing something like that, God may use our lives to impact others by helping us make a wise and sacred use of every opportunity for doing good.