Am I Really Wasting My Life?

Our discipleship group at church is studying the book Don't Waste Your Life by John Piper. It's a book that I commend to everyone. In it, Piper systematically explains his view of a life well-lived in God's eyes. He speaks of fulfillment--not our own, but God's. He outlines purpose--not our own purpose, but God's desire for our lives.

We are in the midst of a powerful chapter, titled Living to Prove He Is More Precious Than Life. This chapter really drills down to the misconceptions about a good life and Piper is quite frank about topics like money, sacrifice, avoidance, and the great neutralizer, television. It is a convicting chapter in a powerfully challenging book.

In the chapter, Piper talks of the "weightlessness of God" and attributes the term to David Wells. In his book God In the Wasteland: The Reality of Truth in a World of Fading Dreams, Wells says, "Those who assure the pollsters of their belief in God's existence may nonetheless consider him less interesting than television, his commands less authoritative than their appetites for affluence and influence, his judgement no more awe-inspiring than the evening news, and his truth less compelling than the advertisers' sweet fog of flattery and lies...Weightlessness tells us nothing about God but everything about ourselves, about our condition, about our psychological disposition to exclude God from our reality."

This startling and true reality makes me examine my own ways of minimalizing God. It makes me ask, "How am I honoring Him in my life?" Piper speaks in detail about how just living a good life, spending time with the wife and kids, and not getting into big trouble is wasting a life. When I was dead in sin, I thought that was enough. In fact, it was the example of the good husband and Dad. But as I understand more about God's desires for me, it doesn't seem satisfying at all.

What must we do to live a life well lived in God's eyes? How do we avoid a wasted life? I honestly don't know. But I wait (sometimes patiently) for God to offer me the answers.