WHAT DO YOU HAVE LEFT?

Time wasting is such a terrible thing. I feel like it steals from us because we are born into time. Everything happens when it ought to happen until we are old enough to affect the process of occurrences in our lives thereby impacting their timing. I have heard people complain about some people racing through life and where I come from, if things happen too fast for you, the elders are worried that you might not live long so that they want to ‘slow you down a bit’ so you don’t die early. What they seem to miss though is that moving slower than you ought to is actually worse because it means you have wasted precious time thereby allowing time to be stolen from you which is like thrashing it yourself.

Several things constitute time wasting but one of the ones I find most grievous is the time we spend ‘crying over spilt milk.’ ‘Crying over spilt milk’ is an idiom that means ‘grieving over something lost which cannot be regained.’ The milk is already spilt and cannot be retrieved. Though the loss/waste is painful, to spend time and energy crying, moaning or being sorrowful over the loss for an extended period is worse than the loss. I realize that we have emotions and so, would naturally feel bad but we have to learn that if the negative emotion is extended particularly for something that cannot be regained, it becomes waste of time and energy because we can hardly think thoughts that would move us forward in the time that we are still emotionally invested in the past. We need to move forward while we can because time is far spent already. 

John 9: 4 “We must quickly carry out the tasks assigned us by the one who sent us. The night is coming, and then no one can work”

While one is busy crying over what is lost, we lose sight of what we have left unconsciously making decisions based on what we lost which would often not be the best decisions. Interestingly, God does not need what you lost to take you forward; all He asks for is what you have left. When ‘milk is spilt it is spilt’ and cannot be retrieved so we must let go off it since it has left us forever. You can’t go forward looking back; at best you will become a pillar of salt, stagnant, neither going back or forward. I believe it even frustrates God hence the scripture below.

Joshua 1: 1 – 2 “After the death of Moses the Lord’s servant, the Lord spoke to Joshua son of Nun, Moses assistant. He said, ‘Moses, my servant is dead. Therefore, the time has come for you to lead these people, the Israelites, across the Jordan River into the land I am giving them.”

Moses was not about to be resurrected from the dead so God set the example for using what He has left despite all He had invested in Moses and knowing that Moses was definitely more empowered than Joshua was. It does not matter how little or insignificant what you have left may seem; please focus on it because that is what God would work it to ensure that you become who He has made you to be and it is never too late.