Rev. A.J. Ogden

We often hear folks say, “I’ll have to make up for lost time.” But I am not sure we can ever completely make up for wasted hours, days, or years. When a minute is gone, it is gone forever and you cannot bring it back.

I, for one, wish I could live my life over and do it much better, but it can’t be done. Perhaps all of us have wasted at least a part of our God given lives. It is sad to see many who waste nearly all of their years on a sinful life. A sinful life is a wasted life!

God’s Scripture says in James 4:7-8, “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw night to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.” We must first have the new birth; then total surrender. I’d like to share a poem by Theodore W. Brenman:

I looked upon a farm one day,

That once I used to own;

The barn had fallen to the ground,

The fields were overgrown.

The house in which my children grew,

Where we had lived for years –

I turned to see it broken down,

And brushed aside the tears.

I looked upon my soul one day,

To find it too had grown,

With thorns and nettles everywhere,

The seeds neglect had sown.

The years had passed while I had cared

For things of lesser worth:

The things of Heaven I let go

While minding things of Earth.

To Christ I turned with bitter tears

And cried, “O Lord, forgive!

I haven’t much time left for thee,

Not many years to live.”

The wasted years forever gone,

The days I can’t recall;

If I could live those days again,

I’d make Him Lord of all.