Don’t Waste Your Life
“For to me, to live [is] Christ, and to die [is] gain.” (Philippians 1:21)
“God created me — and you — to live with a single, all-embracing, all-transforming passion — namely, a passion to glorify God by enjoying and displaying his supreme excellence in all the spheres of life.” John Piper, Don’t Waste Your Life (p. 31).
I started reading this book by John Piper recently, and it has challenged me spiritually. What caught my eye at first was the title. At my age, I have more life behind me than I have in front of me, so I am constantly considering what I am investing in from a 401H program perspective…that is the Heavenly retirement program.
My personal mantra is to “make a difference for eternity.” I am acutely aware that my business, money, degrees, certifications, or awards will mean nothing when I stand before the Lord after I die. The only thing that will be in my heavenly retirement account are the souls of people.
In the book, John Piper mentioned a plaque that hung in his childhood home. It read, “Only one life, twill soon be past; Only what’s done for Christ will last.” I’ve heard that before, but it is a good reminder to have ever-present in front of you.
I am reading the chapter “Magnifying Christ Through Pain and Death.” I have been camped out on it for a while as I slowly and methodically meditate on its truths.
In the previous chapters, he talks about how the purpose of our lives is to magnify God and bring Him glory. He brilliantly distinguishes between the application of the term “magnify” by saying that it does not refer to using a microscope to make something small look bigger, but rather, it refers to using a telescope (like the Hubble telescope) to “make something unimaginably great look like what it really is.”
In this chapter, however, he talks about how suffering is a means of magnifying Him. I want you to let that last sentence sink in for a moment because that is exactly what I’ve been doing with this chapter… chewing on it… meditating on the deep truths.
I have been writing for years about the things that I’ve suffered as a result of childhood trauma, and while I knew He had a plan and a purpose for it, I don’t think I saw it as a means to magnify Him…at least not consciously.
“He (Jesus) knew that suffering (whether small discomforts or dreadful torture) would be the path in this age for making him most visibly supreme.” (John Piper, p.61)
I can see how it is impossible for me to write about the suffering I experienced without writing about the God who was with me during that suffering and brought me through and out of that suffering. I can’t help but tell other people about how the Lord has healed me and continues to heal me.
Why is that? It is because when you go through something hard and find comfort, you want to share the answer with people who are or have gone through the same suffering. It is the very essence of 2 Corinthians 1:3–4, “Blessed [be] the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”
There is absolutely nothing special about my healing journey. I did not heal myself…God healed me. Don’t get me wrong, I did the work that the Great Physician told me I needed to do, but He did the healing.
“Whenever something is of tremendous value to you, and you cherish its beauty or power or uniqueness, you want to draw others’ attention to it and waken in them the same joy.” John Piper. Don’t Waste Your Life (p. 65).
That is where I am today…thinking about how I might make my life count for eternity by drawing other’s attention to the One I cherish with all my heart.
What about you? Will your life count for eternity? Will you make much of Him? Or will you waste your life on things that won’t matter in eternity?
