Tip of My Iceberg

Waste is a word that always leaves you thinking of something not needed. No longer wanted.

There’s that waste we all produce daily. Yup, I’m talking bodily functions here. Nothing like randomly channeling my inner kid.

There’s the waste we as Americans are incredibly gifted in–food, things we’ve decided we no longer need or want, things no longer purposeful to us. We have dumps–sanitary landfills–full of waste.

Wasting money is always a downer. Buying things I don’t really need or feel pressured into buying by overzealous salespeople is typically something I regret.

Sadly, there are wasted lives because folks didn’t want to work through issues or try to find help.

Then there’s my favorite–the waste of time. Something I’ve become quite adept at accomplishing.  Where I take a perfectly good chunk of time and let it flutter away with no plan, no intent, no purpose.

At times like this, my go-to waste  of choice is mindless TV or novels that I don’t ever remember reading.

The hard part about wasting anything is the sense that I could have chosen better. Should have.

The other day I came home from a long day of work, hoping to get some things done around the house. I was behind on laundry and cleaning. Dust was becoming the new finish on the furniture, and we were both running out of underwear. John wasn’t going to be home till late, so I had the chance to just get ‘er done without having to worry about dinner or conversation.

With every intent of finding a music channel on TV and rocking out the cleaning, HGTV came on. House Hunters International. Folks were trying to find a home in some part of Spain.

I’d like to live in Spain.

So with my dust rag in hand, I sat down. For just a minute. To watch what kind of home people I don’t know would get with money I don’t have in a place I most likely won’t live.

Two hours of HGTV later, I was still sitting. With dust rag in hand. Exhausted from accomplishing nothing.

Waste. Time. Money. Even our government reflects our relentless waste. It’s part of the human condition.

God isn’t hampered by that problem. His plans always prevail.

“The Lord frustrates the plans of the nations and thwarts all their schemes. But the Lords’s plans stand firm forever; His intentions can never be shaken.”   Psalm 33:10-11

My best plans will never work out exactly as I’d like. They’ll never be perfect. But God’s plan is.

What’s the plan? To show the world that He loves it enough to send His only Son to pay the penalty for all the wrongs we’ve done. A perfect plan. A costly plan. Painful, yes. Wasteful? Never.

Wasting time on worry accomplishes nothing. Spending time in gratitude for the fact that God sees me as worth saving–that’s a plan I can get behind.

Even if it takes me awhile to get there.