Hey gals, for my last post this week before I turn it over to the lovely Andrea Boll, I am honored to introduce to you a guest blogger who is an incredibly amazing woman of God that I admire so much and who I am so blessed to share life with..my older sister, Shannon Hein!--Martha
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"There is no thief like a bad movie". When I first heard that quote, I thought, "So true! I loath getting to the end of the movie and thinking 'What a total waste! I can never get those two hours of my life back now and I can think of a dozen things I'd rather have done.'"
Of course, there are other things that are a thief of time - an unsuccessful shopping trip, for instance. If I can’t find what I want/need I’m more bothered by the wasted time than not getting what I’d hoped to find.
Then, there's facebook. I love getting updates on my friends and seeing how things are going . . . but, you know . . . enough said.
Wasted time. It annoys me to no end! Which is why I'm so grateful for a lesson Jesus taught me when I was in jr. high. Every girl in our class had a crush on this one guy. He had a crush on my best friend, and oh! the agony of the love triangle! When I "fell out of love with him" after, like, a month, I wondered what was the point of that whole thing. Was I really supposed to do that whole "have-a-crush-on-a-guy-and-see-if-I-can-catch-his-eye-and-oh-crap-he-likes-someone-else-I'm-devastated" thing over and over again through my teenage years?
I felt God say very clearly, "No, you don't." Rather than this being a chastisement from Him, it was an invitation to avoid wasting time. That's not to say that relationships are a waste of time necessarily, but rather the time spent daydreaming, pining, and being discontent was; I could never get it back. I’m so grateful to Him for pointing that out because He then began to train me to capture “rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5, NLT). Often they weren’t even thoughts of a specific guy, just general thoughts of being discontented with where I was in life. He showed me how much time I can quickly waste by entertaining such thoughts, how those thoughts wiggled their way into my mood and then firmly grounded themselves in my outlook on life in general. Rather than setting my “sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand” I was being trapped in the moment, and therefore wasting that moment (Col. 3:1, NLT).
Due to His help, I can look back at my years of being a single gal and say, “Ah, I loved that time in my life; it wasn’t wasted.”
Now if I could just pick better movies . . .
Going green!
Shannon
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"There is no thief like a bad movie". When I first heard that quote, I thought, "So true! I loath getting to the end of the movie and thinking 'What a total waste! I can never get those two hours of my life back now and I can think of a dozen things I'd rather have done.'"
Of course, there are other things that are a thief of time - an unsuccessful shopping trip, for instance. If I can’t find what I want/need I’m more bothered by the wasted time than not getting what I’d hoped to find.
Then, there's facebook. I love getting updates on my friends and seeing how things are going . . . but, you know . . . enough said.
Wasted time. It annoys me to no end! Which is why I'm so grateful for a lesson Jesus taught me when I was in jr. high. Every girl in our class had a crush on this one guy. He had a crush on my best friend, and oh! the agony of the love triangle! When I "fell out of love with him" after, like, a month, I wondered what was the point of that whole thing. Was I really supposed to do that whole "have-a-crush-on-a-guy-and-see-if-I-can-catch-his-eye-and-oh-crap-he-likes-someone-else-I'm-devastated" thing over and over again through my teenage years?
I felt God say very clearly, "No, you don't." Rather than this being a chastisement from Him, it was an invitation to avoid wasting time. That's not to say that relationships are a waste of time necessarily, but rather the time spent daydreaming, pining, and being discontent was; I could never get it back. I’m so grateful to Him for pointing that out because He then began to train me to capture “rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5, NLT). Often they weren’t even thoughts of a specific guy, just general thoughts of being discontented with where I was in life. He showed me how much time I can quickly waste by entertaining such thoughts, how those thoughts wiggled their way into my mood and then firmly grounded themselves in my outlook on life in general. Rather than setting my “sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand” I was being trapped in the moment, and therefore wasting that moment (Col. 3:1, NLT).
Due to His help, I can look back at my years of being a single gal and say, “Ah, I loved that time in my life; it wasn’t wasted.”
Now if I could just pick better movies . . .
Going green!
Shannon
November 22, 2009 at 10:47 PM
Shan, I wish we were friends in Jr. High--your friendship would have done me a lot of good! But, I am choosing not to waste my time thinking of how different my life would have been back then if you were in it--instead, I will think on how lovely my life is now because you're a part of it... I enjoy Colossians-3:1-ing it with you! xox
November 24, 2009 at 9:46 AM
This is so helpful, Shannon! Thanks for sharing your personal experience and for including Scriptures that we can all cling to! I am encouraged to seize the moments I have today and not waste them entertaining wrong thoughts. Love ya, sister!
February 5, 2010 at 12:31 PM
Shannon, this is great. I will be passing this along to a friend and rereading now so it soaks in to my heart as well.