{"id":6944,"date":"2015-09-23T00:05:51","date_gmt":"2015-09-23T07:05:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/?p=6944"},"modified":"2015-09-22T11:04:46","modified_gmt":"2015-09-22T18:04:46","slug":"dont-waste-your-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/2015\/09\/23\/dont-waste-your-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Don’t Waste Your Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

For a voice of wailing is heard from Zion:
\n\u2018How we are plundered!
\nWe are greatly ashamed,
\nBecause we have forsaken the land,
\nBecause we have been cast out of our dwellings.\u2019 \u201d
\nYet hear the word of the LORD, O women,
\nAnd let your ear receive the word of His mouth;
\nTeach your daughters wailing,
\nAnd everyone her neighbor a lamentation.
\nFor death has come through our windows,
\nHas entered our palaces,
\nTo kill off the children\u2014 no longer to be outside!
\nAnd the young men\u2014 no longer on the streets!
\nSpeak, \u201cThus says the LORD:
\n\u2018Even the carcasses of men shall fall as refuse on the open field,
\nLike cuttings after the harvester,
\nAnd no one shall gather them.\u2019 \u201d
\nThus says the LORD:
\n\u201cLet not the wise man glory in his wisdom,
\nLet not the mighty man glory in his might,
\nNor let the rich man glory in his riches;
\nBut let him who glories glory in this,
\nThat he understands and knows Me,
\nThat I am the LORD, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth.
\nFor in these I delight,\u201d says the LORD. (Jeremiah 9:19-24)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Life is more than our stuff. It is more than who we know, how talented we are, or how strong we are. Life consists in knowing God: knowing that he is strong, talented, knows everything, and owns the cattle on a thousand hills. Our treasure is in him, not in ourselves.
\nThe Israelites had focused their attention on themselves and their needs. They forgot that God knew their needs better than they did. They stressed over their circumstances and tried to fix them on their own. They abandoned God and turned to the lies they thought would protect them. They lost everything because they misplaced life\u2019s source. <\/p>\n

God warned them they would need the services of professional mourners because what they would soon face from Babylon was so horrific. In ancient Israel, as in many ancient cultures, it was not uncommon to hire people to cry over a dead loved one at a funeral, much for the same reason so many television sit-coms have studio audiences.<\/p>\n

Why is it, when tomorrow has an infinite number of possibilities ranging from horrible to wonderful, do we invest so much time and energy worrying about it? God has only given us today, after all. When tomorrow comes and if bad stuff happens, we\u2019ll need our emotion and energy to live through that then. Why use what we\u2019ll need tomorrow, now, when we\u2019ll need it then?<\/p>\n

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For a voice of wailing is heard from Zion: \u2018How we are plundered! We are greatly ashamed, Because we have forsaken the land, Because we have been cast out of our dwellings.\u2019 \u201d Yet hear the word of the LORD, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_s2mail":"yes"},"categories":[18,17,16],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6944"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6944"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6946,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6944\/revisions\/6946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nettelhorst.com\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}