Lose, Loss, Lost

Have you ever lost anything?

Sure you have, we all have, and the stories are endless…

I have a brother, a couple of them to be exact, who cannot hang onto their keys; a supervisor where I work is forever losing his clipboard; a friend is famous for losing her cell phone. My deal is my glasses…I have four pairs of eyeglasses and I still am constantly looking for them.

But let’s analyze this…did we really lose it, as in there is no replacement if it is never found, or have we just misplaced the thing? And is there a difference?

As I see it from my house, with or without my glasses, there isn’t much of a difference…if I misplace my glasses, they are momentarily lost to me. In other words, things are lost only because we don’t know where they are…simple, right?

Glasses, keys, clipboards, and such are somewhere out of our line of vision, but they are not lost forever. They can, and will be eventually found, if not by us, by someone else. Things can be replaced. It’s not like the locksmith has forgotten how to make another key or the planet is depleted of eyeglasses.

Even in death, people are not really lost to us because we have a wealth of memories and a blessed hope of life eternal. Our loss is in not seeing them again in this realm, but they are not lost.

Think about how often we use the word ‘lost’ when it really doesn’t apply…

We ask, “Have you lost your mind?” How does one lose their mind, y’all?

And let me digress for a moment…the word is LOSE, not LOOSE. Ugh! One does not LOOSE their keys, as if they are demon possessed. The word is LOSE…it gets on my ever-loving last nerve when someone makes that mistake in writing.

There now *sigh*…I am back…

The mind can become diseased and all memory is gone; extensive drug and alcohol use can effect the thinking process; someone can have a breakdown of emotions and reality and act irrational, to the point of being hospitalized for their protection and ours, but it doesn’t mean they have lost their mind.

Disease, accident, and personal abuse steal the memory, but the mind is not lost. The only mind that is ever truly lost is the reprobate. The reprobate is lascivious, totally out of control in every area of life, unable to determine right from wrong. Their mind has been “given over” to that of a reprobate (Romans 1:18), by God, and there is no recovery.

That is a lesson all by itself, but back to the subject at hand…

Someone may tearfully say, “I lost my best friend,” but friends are not lost, they are found. People come into our lives for a season. The season may come and go or remain forever, but we never lose anything we need to survive.

The Bible relates the story of King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream…

He saw a tree growing in the midst of the earth, and the Lord told him to hew down the tree…cut it down, cut off the branches, shake off the leaves, and scatter the fruit thereof (Daniel 4:1-14).

“Nevertheless leave the stump of his roots in the earth…” (v 15).

The Lord told him to leave something, a remnant, if you will. Leave something that can grow again…something with some life left in it.

Sometimes people are cut from our lives, shaken off, and scattered to the four winds, and we mourn. But if we can remember that all is not lost…if we can but hold onto the stump which remains, we will be the better for it.

The depth of the roots always determine growth. Take heart that we will see growth and the stump will one day produce a tall tree with new branches. The leaves will once again spring forth, and the fruit of our faith and trust in a God who does all things well will bring great results.

Another expression oft repeated is, “They have lost their way,” but folks don’t lose their way, y‘all. They may turn their focus and begin walking in another direction, but trust me, they know the Way.

Though they may be following every wind and trend of doctrine, they have not lost their way. The same wind that blew them out the door, like a tornado suctions out the living room furniture, can shift, and in this shift is correction and restoration.

I speak from experience.

Finally we come to the reason for my dissertation on lose, loss and lost...we have all said at one time or other, “I lost time,” but it is not possible, in my humble opinion, to lose time. One may lose track of time by becoming distracted or not paying attention to the hour, but time is not lost.

We cannot lose something as precise as time. Sixty seconds of every sixty minutes of every twenty-four hour day is not something forfeited or regained.

So what then did the Apostle mean when he wrote these words in Ephesians 5:16...

Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

How can we redeem, or as it reads in the Greek, buy up time? If a day is here and gone…if there are no ‘do-overs’, if time is not lost, how can we redeem moments that are but a memory?

We have to first look at the entirety of Paul’s writing here and see how this verse relates to the whole…Hermeneutics 101, for all of you Bible scholars.

The writer begins with admonishing the Church to be followers of Christ and to walk in love. He then lays it on the line…

As Saints of the Most High, fornication/adultery, uncleanness, covetousness, filthy, unholy talking and jesting are not on the same level with godliness.

This is not talking about the “merry heart doeth good like medicine” brand of joking. Paul is referring to the foolish talk that goes on…the innuendos, the so-called ‘innocent’ conversation. He is telling them that this is not becoming of Saints.

Paul then reminds them that no whoremonger or idolater will have a part in the Kingdom of God. Don’t be deceived by them. Don’t be a partaker. You are no longer in darkness…open your eyes and see the Light.

He tells them to refuse fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. Don’t even talk about their evil, secret ways. The Light will reveal it for the deceptive act it is.

The preacher told the church in Ephesus to wake up, and walk circumspectly…walk exactly and carefully, not as fools, but as wise.

It is here that Paul said, “Redeeming the time…” Buy up; to rescue from supposed loss; improve opportunities. This is what it means to redeem the time.

Time is the indefinite continued progress of existence, and cannot be lost, but it can be wasted. Yesterday in Sunday School, the teacher said that we have ALL have shortcomings. We have ALL made mistakes and wasted the precious fleeting moments in our progress of existence.

It is easy to look at someone else as being a spiritual giant and never in need of this type of teaching, when in reality, as the lovely lady so aptly said, “I think, ‘if you only knew, you would never ask me to teach!’”

She didn’t mean she was a street running heathen in disguise, but that we all err and waste the time God gave is to serve Him. It is not always the ‘big’ sins that hinder our progress, but the little things that weigh on us and cause us regret.

But Paul said, in essence, “If you wasted time, buy it back. Improve your opportunities…get back up and be about the Father’s business. This is serious here, y‘all. Don’t be shortchanged because you stopped or detoured in your progress…step out and do the will of the Lord. Forget the wasted moments and move on into a new and better day. What’s behind you is not important. Forge ahead in the favor and blessing of the Lord.”

And then once you are up and doing, gain understanding…

I read this quote recently… “Like Israel, the Church tends to see God’s blessing as the sign of a special anointing rather than a call to responsibility.”

We have a responsibility to do all we can while we can…

Do you hear the call of responsibility? The call of responsibility may take you across town, around the country, or to the other side of the planet, but if you can hear the call, you are blessed of the Lord.

We also have a responsibility to walk exactly and carefully before God and man. Someone said, “Everything we do - every conversation, every action, every attitude, either adorns or obscures the gospel.”

Allow me to encourage you today to let your life be an adornment to the gospel of Jesus Christ. It has been said that the only Jesus some will see will be in you and me, but equally true…

For some, the only grace they will see will be manifested in and through us. We can talk it all day long, but seeing is believing.

The grace of God, shed abroad in our lives, extended to the world…this is redeeming the time to the nth degree.