We often live as if our time will never end. We act as if death won’t come for us. We act as if there will be no end for us, and furthermore, that there will be no judgment. And as a result, we can find ourselves being extremely careless with our time and with our resources.

The point at which people find themselves realizing that there has been a lot of waste often compels them to give a warning to others. Or possibly there are even moments of regret, or possibly pride that we “would do it all over again”. These moments of reflection even get written down or memorialized in speeches or lectures, shared and reshared by the rest of us to remind us of the truth, that our time in short so we must live for that which is valuable, that which is important.

Recently I was speaking with a friend who mentioned to me the scene at the end of the movie Schindler’s List where Schindler realizes how many more people he could have saved, if only he would have made more money, or sold his car, or even sold the pen in his hand. He could have saved many more people. Many more could have been taken away from the enemy.

Here is the scene to which my friend was referring:

Schindler had done an amazing job of saving many people, yet at the same time, he also realized how much had been wasted. Time had been wasted. Money had been wasted. He realized how much more he could have done. The time had come to the end for him, yet he realized how many other people had their time come to an end long before his time had ended.

There is a similar spirit in Paul’s statement to the Corinthians as he tells them also that the time, their time, is short:

What I mean, brothers and sisters, is that the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they do not; those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away.

1 Corinthians 7:29-31

Whether we realize it or not, our time is short and our lives, our world, is passing away. But if we are honest, we know that we often stop thinking about what is truly important and instead focus upon ourselves. Instead of focusing on what is eternal, we focus on our own comforts, our own selves.

But Paul points out the real truth: These things are all passing away and the only thing that is eternal is the King and his kingdom. He is the one person to whom we should be giving our time and our energy. Not to myself. Not to build me up. Not to make me rich or powerful or famous. In the end, there is no point to any of this because it is all passing away. We build it all. We work for ourselves, to build ourselves up, and yet it will only be torn down. No one to remember our name. No one to remember anything about what we have built.

Instead, there is only one who will last and one to whom we must give our lives: To Christ, and to him alone. We must live to lift him up. We must live to glorify him. We must live for him and for him alone because he is the only one who will last.

So in a similar way to Schindler’s experience, Paul tells the Corinthians that the things of this world that worry them, they should live in such a way that they no longer worry them. These things are passing away. In just the space of a few years, they will no longer be there, but God and his glory will live on forever, as will the souls of the other people there in Corinth, either with the Lord in his kingdom, or separate from the Lord outside.

And in that time, what will we say? Will we regret the way that we spent our time? Will we regret how we have spent the resources that we were given? Or will we hear from the Lord, “Well done, good and faithful servant?”

These are important questions that we must ask ourselves now, in this time. We must pose these questions to ourselves even at this moment where we are facing challenges, even while we are having difficulty. Why? Because our answers to these questions will define the next 10, 20, 30 years or more of our lives. We can’t wait until things get better. They never will. Instead, our answers to those questions will guide how we live the rest of our lives. Whether we will look back thinking that we have wasted our lives, or whether we look back knowing that we gave our lives for the things that will last. That which is eternal and will last beyond us, forever, into eternity: The glory of our King and for the good of other people who could, like us, come to know him.