As we begin a new year I would like to offer to you a series of suggestions on ways in which we can waste an incredible amount of time and probably ruin an entire year. If you stay with this long enough we ask two important questions at the end of the message. Happy new year.
Questions for Reflection:
- In your life what were the best times of 2011?
- In your life what were the hardest times of 2011?
- How was God involved in both the good and hard times of 2011?
- How would you improve the way in which God was involved in your life in 2011 this coming year?
- What are going to do to make this happen?
Sermon: How to Waste Time and Ruin a Year
Today is New Year’s day. We are in the first hours of a brand new year. New Year’s is an occasion when we naturally think of the passage of time. This is a time of year when we talk about how we hope to spend our time in the coming year and how we hope to use our time and what we hope to accomplish. Today the expanse of time that will be 2012 stretches out before us. Today 2012 seems a bit like a guest whom we’ve just met, a guest around whom we’re still a little unsure. We don’t know what this year will bring; we have no experience with this year. We were familiar with 2011. Be December 2011 felt like a pair of comfortable slippers but we don’t know about this new year.
Our society is very time conscious. So many of the things we do are regulated by time. We govern our lives by what time events start and end. We, as a society, believe it is necessary to have clocks hanging all over the place, except maybe in malls and stores. If we aren’t within sight of a clock we can get a little fidgety and panicky.
Because of that we wear wrist watches and we have desk clocks and clocks on our computer screens and clocks in our phones. We have clocks in our cars, trucks and clocks on all our appliances and time and temperature displays on signs on buildings in our city. Some churches even have clocks built into the pulpits with the objective that then the preacher will quit on time so the people can get to wherever they are going next on time. Some preachers thwart that by not using the pulpit.
Isn’t it amazing how much of our lives are governed by the clock and by keeping track of time. I remember when I worked at a job where we had punch cards and a punch clock. I remember seeing people dashing to the punch clock so that they wouldn’t be a minute late; we also weren’t supposed to punch in a minute early. We pack our lives so full of things to do that we have to keep such close track of time and we need to keep calendars and write down everything we’re going to do so that we don’t double book ourselves. In some cultures people can get by without a calendar or a watch but not in ours. We’re much too time conscious for that.
Years ago we bought a computer program that did nothing but create calendars. When I first saw this program I was amazed at how many different kinds of calendars there were. There was the calendar where you could see only one week on every page and write down what you do or hope to do every hour of every day. There was also the calendar for the person who was extremely busy that has only one day on every page so that you can pack a lot of things into every day. There was the calendar where you could put a month on each page or the one where you could put a year on each page. And every one of those calendars came in a variety of sizes, styles, shapes and colors and you could custom fit them exactly as you would like them.
If calendars in varying shapes and sizes weren’t enough to help us organize our lives we could also buy books and take courses on how to manage our time; probably there’s an app for that. These things are supposed to teach us how to plan and plot our days and weeks and how to set priorities so that we can put in order of importance the things that need to be done and the order in which we will do them. This assumes that we have the discipline to actually do what it is we’ve written down. This all reminds me of the words of Will Rogers who once said, “Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.”
In answer to this whole hubbub about time in our society the apostle James perhaps gives us a different perspective when he said in chapter four of the Epistle of James beginning with verse 13
13Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.”
14Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.
15Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”
16As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil.
17Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.
In answer to a society that is obsessed with saving time and being good time managers and being efficient I would like to offer us some suggestions for this new year not on how we can be more efficient but on how we can waste time. I think if we look somewhat tongue in cheek at how to waste time we might gain insight into how to make better use of our time. These suggestions come from Chuck Swindoll’s book The Finishing Touch.
The first thing that we can do to waste time is to Worry a Lot. Get up early in the morning and begin the day by worrying about all the things that can possibly go wrong. Worry that you might get run over by a bus or that your children might get severely injured while playing. Worry that you might burn yourself on the stove or that you’ll electrocute yourself with the Vacuum Cleaner. Worry that you might be in a bad car accident. Worry that you might be involved in a grisly industrial machinery accident.
Worry about what might have been or what could have been if only you had done this or that differently. Worry about what you might have done wrong, mistakes that you might have made but aren’t sure whether or not you actually made them. Worry about things you could have done but didn’t do. Worry about your weight, your marriage and the fact that we’ve just begun a new year so that means you’re getting older. There is almost no limit to what there is we can worry about in our lives if we set our minds to it. And worry is one of the most wonderful time wasters there is.
Should you run out of things to worry about within your immediate family then you can start to worry about other people’s affairs - you could even worry about the affairs of people on your favorite TV program. Turn on the radio, watch T.V or read the paper and worry about what you hear on the news or the weather or the sports reports. Worry about what the unusual weather this winter might mean - heard a guy the other day who had a whole year of things to worry about because of the lack of snow cover so far this winter. He was obviously an accomplished worry-er. Worry about crime in our country. Worry about youth gangs and the federal deficit and increasing taxes and decreasing government services. Worry about whether or not our province can support both the CFL and the NHL. There are so many things that you could be worrying about; probably most of which you’ve not yet worried about. Worry that you’ve been underachieving in your worrying. Whatever you do make sure that you never think about the fact that the vast majority of the things you worry about won’t happen. Or, if you happen to think of that then convince yourself that clearly your worrying is effective because what you’re worrying about isn’t happening.
Wake up at night so that you can lose sleep worrying about some things that you didn’t get around too worrying about during the day. Need some help with things to worry about? Spend time with negative people like the Pessimist who was the neighbor of an Optimist. One bright sunny summer day the Optimist said to the Pessimist, “My what a lovely sunny day.” The Pessimist replied, “If this heat keeps up the grass will be all brown and withered before we know it.” Several days later it began to rain and so the Optimist greeted his Pessmist neighbor by saying, “My what a lovely rain we’re having.” The Pessimist replied, “If it doesn’t stop raining soon my garden is going to float away.”
The Optimist bought a hunting dog and eagerly asked his Pessimist neighbor if he wouldn’t go hunting with him one day. The Pessimist looked at the dog and said, “Looks like a mutt to me.” Eventually with great persistence the Optimist was able to persuade the Pessimist to go hunting with him. They got out to the swamp where they were going to be hunting and quite soon the Optimist scared up a flock of ducks, fired and hit one of them. He snapped his fingers and his new dog walked out on top of the water and picked up the duck and walked back on top of the water. The Optimist turned to the Pessimist and said, “What do you think of my dog now?” “Humph. Dumb dog, can’t even swim” (Illustrations for Biblical Preaching #988).
Worry more and spend time with negative, pessimistic people. If all goes well we can be riddled with ulcers within a month. The best part is that if we’re worrying we’re not doing anything and we’re wasting time.
The first key to wasting time is to worry a lot. The second key to wasting time is to Make Hard and Fast Predictions. State in categorical terms what it is you will be doing. Then follow through on those statements as though your life depended on it. Forget what it says in the passage we read from the book of James about not knowing what our life will be like tomorrow. Make predictions and set your expectations in motion. Be as specific and as forthright as possible and follow in the footsteps of other hard and fast prediction makers who have gone before us.
If all goes well we might end up like Irving Fisher the economist who, in 1929, just six weeks before the great Stock Market Crash said, “There may be a recession in stock prices, but not anything in the nature of a crash.” He then added in a speech made just nine days before the stock market crash, “Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.” Or, we could be like the manager of the International Monetary Fund who in 1959 said , “In all likelihood, world inflation is over.” I did some research this week and found that in 1959 the price of gas was 25 cents a gallon back then. I think inflation somehow squeaked through.
Maybe we could be like Joseph Califano Jr. who said of Jim Jones the cult leader who killed hundreds of his followers, “Your commitment and compassion, your humanitarian principles and your interest in protecting individual liberty and freedom have made an outstanding contribution to furthering the cause of human dignity” (776 Stupidest Things Ever Said pp.51, 52, 146, 21). Or like Jimmy Hoffa who one week before he disappeared in 1975 said, “I don’t need bodyguards.”
Make hard and fast predictions and stick to them. Don’t pray about your intentions or desires Don’t subject them to the Will of God. Don’t seek His will for your life. Determine yourself what you want to do and then set out and do it. Be the master of your own fate. As you’re spinning your wheels you’ll pursue your selfish goals and neglect what is best for your life; what God wants for you. Worry a lot, make hard and fast predictions and follow through on them are the first two ways we can go about wasting time this year.
The third thing to do that will help us to waste time is to Fix Our Attention on Getting Rich. Make the chief end of your life the acquisition of more money. If you need help just go to the local bookstore and look on the shelf under self-help books and you’ll find lots of books telling you how you can get rich. If you’d really rather not read about getting rich, you can watch late night T.V infomercials, they’ll tell you how to subscribe to a series that you can listen to in the car or while you’re walking and this series will make you a millionaire before you’ve got them paid for in three easy payments on your credit card.
If we make the acquisition of money the focus of our attention we won’t have to worry about building relationships with family and friends. We won’t get bogged down with all the hassles of building and maintaining friendships and caring about people and being there to support them in difficulties or having to celebrate with them when they reach milestones. If we focus our attention on getting rich we’ll be able to hang out with high pressure salespeople and we’ll never have to worry about being home for an anniversary or birthday party again because that’s not important since it doesn’t contribute to our goal of making more and more money.
If we are successful at this when we grow older we can look back at our friendless lives, at our families who at best don’t know us or at worst won’t speak to us because we’ve neglected them all our lives and we can feel satisfied that we have chosen what really mattered, that which was really important: money.
Focus our attention on getting rich, make hard and fast predictions and stick to them and worry a lot. Three ways that we can waste time in this new year.
The fourth way that we can waste time in this new year is to Compare Ourselves with Others. This time waster has a dual benefit. The first benefit is that we will bounce back and forth between feelings of arrogance and worthlessness. If I compare myself with this person I can see that I am a lot better than they are. “Man, I am good and you are lucky to know me and have me associate with you I am so good.” Arrogance. But if I compare myself with this other person well you see they’re a lot better than I am. “Oh, I am such scum. Look at what a lousy person I am compared with him or her. I’m not worthy of anyone loving or caring about me. I’m so terrible.”
As long as we focus on comparing ourselves with other people we bounce back and forth between those two extremes: a sense of arrogance and worthlessness and we accomplish nothing because we either are too good to do that job or we’re too worthless.
The second benefit of comparing ourselves with others is that we will spend our lives not knowing who we are. Am I a good person or am I a lousy person? I don’t know because I’m never in one spot long enough to find out for sure. I have no idea who I am.
This idea of comparing ourselves to others is, potentially, a wonderful time waster in our society because in our society no matter what we’re into we can find out about people who are really good at that and compare ourselves to them or we can find really average people and compare ourselves to them. If we’re into sports we can learn about professional athletes or Olympic Athletes or we can go to the local arena or ball diamonds and compare ourselves to people there. If we’re into cooking and things around the house we can buy magazines like Good Housekeeping and compare ourselves to the people and the pictures in those magazines or we can visit a house or two that we know about where the family isn’t as neat as we are or where they don’t do things in the way that we do.
Comparing ourselves with others is a wonderful method of wasting time. We can add it to fixing our attention on getting rich, making hard and fast predictions and worrying a lot.
The final time waster that I want to share with you this morning is to Lengthen Our List of Enemies. If there’s one thing that will keep our wheels spinning and keep our minds racing around unproductive topics it’s the old Blame Game. “Oh, there’s this and this that’s wrong in my life and it’s all that person’s fault. I could be ... if it weren’t for what they did to me way back when.” If we want to lengthen our list of enemies we need to cultivate suspicion. Always question other people’s motives when they offer to help us or do something for us. If we want to lengthen our list of enemies we need to become more paranoid, more worried that people are always out to get us. We need to adopt the saying, “Just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get me,” as our life’s motto. If we’re going to lengthen our list of enemies we need to foster resentment.
One Christmas we were out at my parents’ place in Brandon and one of the T.V stations in Brandon during the Holiday season ran Christmas greetings and New Year’s greetings from area businesses. These commercials really are rather predictable after a while and they get rather tiring actually unless you recognize someone on one of the greetings. That’s what happened to me. I was watching T.V when up on the screen pops the picture of the bully who used to beat me up in school when I was a kid. I said, “Hey, that’s the guy that used to be the bully in school. He’s got a respectable job, he’s on T.V extending Christmas greetings to me. I still don’t like him because he used to beat me up.” It’s been more than 35 years since I last laid eyes on the man much less since he last beat me up, you’d think I could have gotten over it by now. But I keep extending the list of enemies, harboring resentment.
If we cultivate suspicion and paranoia and resentment we can wile away the hours reveling in our feelings of hate and bitterness while stewing over folks who have made or might yet make our lives miserable.
Five suggestions for wasting time: Worry a lot, make hard and fast predictions, fix your attention on getting rich, compare yourself with others and lengthen your list of enemies. If we can only set these surefire suggestions in motion we can attain to new heights of wasting time in 2012. As an added benefit we can also forget all about the hassles connected with being happy and efficient and productive and contented. If we focus on these time wasters, it is quite conceivable that within a few months we can be the most miserable people who have ever lived.
I suppose I need to offer an apology to you this morning for the tone of this message. It’s been sarcastic and grossly exaggerated. But my point in presenting a message like this is to ask us two questions as we close this morning. Number 1: As exaggerated and overdone as what I’ve said this morning has been, how much our our lives have we wasted in the past doing any one or a combination of several of the things I have just talked about? How much time have we wasted worrying instead of praying? How much time have I wasted setting my own predictions and agendas instead of becoming familiar with the mind and the Will of God? How much time have I wasted focusing only on the money end of my work and complaining about not being rich instead of focusing on the enjoyment of being able to work and being allowed to do a job that I enjoy and still being within the top 5% of the richest people in the world? How much time do I waste annually comparing myself to others and becoming arrogant or feeling worthless and not knowing who I am instead of recognizing the person that God has made me and striving together with God to make the best of that personality? How much time do I waste cultivating enemies and lengthening the list of people whom I dislike instead of forgiving and being free?
Question Number Two: How do we want to spend this coming year? Do we want to waste it in the five areas I mentioned this morning or in others that we can think of? Or, do we want to invest it in our relationships with people and with God, those things that are truly important and will bring contentment, peace and joy in our lives?
As I close this morning I would like to direct our thoughts to the words of Ephesians chapter 5:15 & 16, which are also printed in the bulletin as our Call to Worship verses this morning, where Paul wrote,
15Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise,
16making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.
My challenge to us for this coming year is to make the most of our time, to not simply spend it but to invest it in those things that last forever.
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