On Sunday afternoon, I was scrolling through YouTube trying to find something to watch that would quiet my mind and help me get a nap. I ran across this heading, “WASTED YEARS? WHAT GOD SAYS WILL SHOCK YOU.”
That title immediately caught my attention. I watched the video, and it was filled with so much motivation to not give up. Let God run your life, and it will turn out as it is supposed to. It doesn’t matter if you have messed up in the past.
I tried to find out who runs this channel titled “God’s Perspective”, but google says, “The specific owner or creator who runs the inspirational Christian YouTube channel…keeps their personal legal name anonymous or unverified publicly.” These days it is very hard to tell what is AI generated or people generated, but the message is too amazing to not be passed on.
The drawings that go along with the words are stick figures. You wouldn’t think so, but they actually add to the message. You could also listen to it like a podcast and get the information you need as well. I will post it at the end of this blog for you to listen to if you are struggling with the feeling that you haven’t done all God has called you to do, and that you have wasted many precious years spinning your wheels in the mud instead of getting anywhere.
Here are some takeaways from the video:
- We’ve lost seasons through addictions, wrong relationships, going through the motions of living a life not chosen, making choices from fear, waiting for something that never came, and running from things we should have faced.
- We can never get those years back. But we can get something that turns out good.
- The Bible doesn’t work on linear time. God is not limited by what is past.
- In the first chapter of the book of Joel, he speaks of the locust plague that is coming where there will be weeping and mourning. After the locust, the harvest is gone. But God says He will restore those years.
- God won’t return the lost years, but will produce a fullness in what remains that accounts for what was lost.
- You have to make different choices when you decide to turn around. You have to get your life under the control of God and what He wants for you. And possibly get yourself back to where God wanted you to be in the first place.
- The prodigal son was gone for years. Those years seemed wasted, but the Father restored him when he returned, humbled by his experiences.
- Moses was forty when his story fell apart. After being raised in Pharaoh’s court for a position of power, he killed an Egyptian and had to flee. He spent the next 40 years tending sheep for his father-in-law. FORTY YEARS! It looked like Moses had missed his moment. But at 80 years old, Moses became the deliverer he was meant to be. He had been taught over those 40 years how to survive in the dessert by tending sheep. He knew how to lead people through that environment. He knew the terrain. Those 40 years were used by God for training Moses to complete his calling as the deliverer for the Hebrews.
- David spent years running from Saul and hiding in caves when he was supposed to be living as the King. During that time, when his life wasn’t easy, he wrote many of the Psalms that we go to for our help and peace today.
- You have to return to God with all your heart and make Him the center of everything you do.
- The past cannot be changed, but it can be restored to something good.
Here is the link for the video below. It is 17:11 minutes long. It is worth your time, if you feel you have wasted too many years and not fulfilled what God wants you to do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-E62y0E0Op0
What have your years produced in you that has trained you for what God wants you to do?