Nothing is Wasted by Emily Copeland

I’ve found myself telling certain people in my life lately that I don’t want to waste God's time. Really just meaning that if God has called me to something that I don’t want to do it unless it’s healthy and thriving. 

I have an issue with the thought of wasting time in general. It makes me squirm. Once upon a time, I created a YouTube video on the art of color-coding and scheduling every hour of your day. It’s called block scheduling, and it gives me more comfort and satisfaction than I care to admit. I’ve always cherished the idea of being in control of my time and getting a lot of things done. I would relish in the comments like, “I don’t know how you get everything done”, or “where do you find the time?”, to which I would excitedly respond with something like, “have you ever heard of block scheduling?” (I might as well have just asked them if they’ve ever heard of OCD tendencies that have an unhealthy outlet called block scheduling. But I digress.)

Taking it to the next level; as a girl desperate to please Jesus, I knew that managing my time is only healthy if I fully understand and operate from the knowledge that it’s ALL God’s time. Every second. 

Well, as I sat alone at ONE DAY last month, asking God to show me how to not waste His time, I found myself writing this in my journal:

“You will only waste what you hold onto.”

It felt like God had taken the blinders off of my eyes to expose where I had been getting it all wrong. The reality is that you can’t waste time that God gifts to you unless you hold onto your own idea of how it should be used, or whether or not that use of time is deemed “healthy” or “worthy”. We can’t determine it. That’s God’s job. It’s God’s time to delegate. Oh, and only He can call things “worthy”.

So the heart-work begins. In practicing stillness (like I’ve learned and practiced at Encourage) and meditating on God’s word, He is showing me the areas of my life that I have chosen my own way. I usually do this and then invite God to come along. Anyone else do this too?

He is reminding me that nothing that He calls me to do will be wasted as I step out in obedience. Even if it takes much longer than I think it should, or whether it involves people that I wouldn’t have considered working with myself. 

My job is not to determine how best to use God’s time and resources, but to follow His lead and accept that the times of silence and valleys are never wasted seasons. Never. I have no business holding onto and trying to control those seasons. God knows what our hearts need, and sometimes He needs to clear our plates and schedules to show it to us. Maybe God is speaking to you what He said to me; God is calling, and He wants His time back. Let’s hand it over and follow His lead. Not a moment will be wasted.