The Point #164 - Faithfulness vs. Wasting Time

Faithfulness is a godly quality, a trait to be admired. It is a virtue that is praised in Scripture.  But Faithfulness is only a good thing when it is connected to a Christ-like pursuit. Join me today as we distinguish being faithful from simply doing things by habit. We may feel good about things that actually are keeping us stuck in a rut.

Transcript

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It rained in our house a lot this week. And it was great. The grass needed it. But it was one of those times when it rained so much that people's basements started flooding, the ground was soaked, it it was that much rain. It had rained a couple different days for several hours. And everything was drenched. Well, I was on my back porch up early watching the rain come down. And I thought it was really pretty. I enjoyed the cool breeze. It was unexpected in late July to have that cool of a temperature. So I was really enjoying watching it. Then all of a sudden I see in the rain, the rain that had been going on for over a day, the automatic sprinklers go off. And now we have this steady rainfall, soaked ground, and the sprinklers are going. The former owners of this house had uh sprinklers installed around the plants and the grass in the backyard. And I thought to myself, I'm watching these sprinklers go off, thinking, first of all, okay, that's hilarious. The last thing we need is the sprinklers going off. And then I thought, after I was watching them for a minute, I thought, okay, those are on autopilot. They just go off with a timer at the same time every day. They don't sense that it's raining. And I looked at them and I thought this thought. I don't want to be that. I do not want to be the automatic sprinklers continuing to soak the already soaked ground while it's raining. And it got me thinking about the word faithfulness. Faithfulness is a beautiful and important quality to have. Faithfulness is highly praised in the book of Proverbs and other places in the Bible. But faithfulness is not the same thing as simply getting stuck in a rut or continuing to do the same thing as a habit. That is not the same as faithfulness. Faithfulness is very tied to what you are doing or who you are, what your character is that makes you faithful. And I wonder if we would be willing to take the time every once in a while, maybe once a year, maybe a couple times a year, where you do what I did, but I'm looking out at the rain and the sprinklers and thinking, what are the things that I do in my life on road? Like it's just automatic. I just do these things daily, weekly, uh, monthly, whatever. And I'm calling them faithfulness when really it's just something that I do as a habit. Um, maybe it's something that makes me feel better as a Christian, but it's not something that's tied to God or the Bible. I'm willing to look at that in my own life. I hope that you are too. I mean, obviously, if you're doing something continuously and it's negative, we can't call that faithfulness. What if every morning a man woke up and every day of his life at 8 a.m., for no reason he kicked his dog really hard? Wow, we wouldn't say that man faithfully kicked his dog. No, faithfulness is only a quality that you want in your life if it's tied to a biblical command, um, getting closer to the Lord, seeking Christ, loving people, um, such as being faithful to your marriage. That is a strong biblical command because marriage is a picture of God and the Christian, and He is faithful to us. Faithfulness to parent your children well, faithfulness to pray, faithfulness to spend time with God and in his word, faithfulness to church. All of these things are mentioned in the Bible and are talked about as necessities and as things that God loves. That is so important to build a life where you are faithful in those areas. Um, I am so I admire so much a person that maybe has stayed faithful at his job for 50 years, caring for his family, providing the needs for his family, in in it of him, in it of itself, that a person punches a time clock for every day for 50 years, is not the end all. What he's doing is he's faithfully paying the bills for his family, caring and providing for a wife and children, maybe grandchildren, maybe giving to the local church or supporting orphans or uh providing a community service. The reason why he's doing it is what makes his faithfulness great. Are you being redundant in something in your life? And you've just chalked it up as faithfulness because it makes you feel better about yourself that you do it, but there's really no benefit. Are we actually in some times wasting our lives on meaningless tasks? But we've just always done it that way. Maybe it was um inherited, so we always did it because our family always did it, maybe um, you know, attending a specific denomination like the Catholic Church or uh being a Muslim or something like that. We're so faithful to something, but we're not actually doing God's will in doing it. These are things to look at, and you need to be very brave and very honest and very humble when you take a look at your life and you inventory what I am spending my time on. Is this actually faithfulness, or is this actually something that is not benefiting God, others, or myself? Would it be more brave to drop it off so that you can align yourself with the Bible and biblical doctrine better? Would maybe there was a season of time when something that you did was important, but it no longer has a place and it's no longer benefiting anyone, it's not being faithful to continue to water the grass as a sprinkler if it's been raining for a whole day. What is the purpose of what we're doing? If it is bringing us closer to God and others, if it is a biblical command or a biblical doctrine or biblical philosophy, definitely stay faithful, do not quit, stay in the trenches, do the hard thing. But is there anything else in our life that's taking up our time? And we've just put it in the category of being faithful when actually it's a time waste, it could actually be negative for those around us. This is just a thought I had, and I am evaluating this in my life because the Bible does tell us that we are supposed to redeem our time, and that means we don't get stuck in a rut doing something useless when there's a world to win to Christ, when there is a family to love, when there are people around us that need us, when we need to be our very best, our body is a temple of God, so we need to care for it well. I want to be brave enough to identify what is wasting my time, even if it had a use at one point, if it's a time waste, I want to be willing to change and replace it with something that is actually going to help eternity, going to glorify God. Just a small thought, and maybe you could think through this in your own life too. Let's love God through loving others this week. Have a great week, friends.