The Haunting Ghosts of Lost Days

Any day that ends without having had any real intimate fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ that is lacking anything productive having been done for the kingdom of God is a lost day. A lost day's minutes are mostly spent on temporal things which have no eternal returns rather than investing its minutes in eternal things which have great rewards. One can be redeemed from the sin of not redeeming the time of a lost day. But the lost time of a lost day will never be redeemed. It's lost forever.

To the wise, the ghosts of lost days will haunt them and should produce in them a greater resolve to not live any more lost days. Again, lost souls can be saved. Lost time cannot be. All of the opportunities for growing in grace and the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ on that lost day are gone. If we're not going forward spiritually, then we're going backward. If we're not growing spiritually, then we're dying.

Most lost days occur during times that we call days of rest that are actually most often days of leisure. There's a difference between leisure and rest. Again, most lost days are a product and a result of leisure. On the surface, days of leisure and days of rest may appear to be the same thing. But they are diametrically opposite one from the other. The activities or lack of activities on days of leisure versus days of rest may not appear to be significantly different. It is who that is in charge of those days. And what the motive is behind that day. That is the biggest difference between a day of leisure and a day of rest.

The priorities of leisure are things of the flesh and world. The priorities of rest are things of the spirit. God gives us rest. Our flesh takes its leisure. Rest recreates. It regenerates. Its activities are recreational because they're refreshing to both the body and the mind. One very critical element of rest is casting our cares and trusting our Father. It is truly impossible to rest on any day that my anxiety and or fear prevails. To truly rest, I must commit all of these things to the Lord, trusting His love because His love casts out fear because fear has torment.

Leisure entertains. It is an effort to get lost in activities that allows one to avoid considering their problems. True days of rest allow God to be in control, trusting him that he knows what is best for us and how to refresh us. False days of rest are actually days of leisure. God is not in control of these at all. In fact, consciously or subconsciously, in days of leisure, one seeks to avoid God and His expectations for us. The fulfilled potential of rest produces eternal results. The unfulfilled potential of days of leisure have eternal consequences.

One can never get back the opportunities that are lost on days of leisure. When a day of rest is over, there's peace. When a day of leisure is over, there's a sense of loss and regret. We want the fragrance of rest to linger in our minds and spirits going forward. Yet we would prefer that the haunting regrets of the ghosts of lost days would leave us alone. But they do not.

Every day is a day. And every dollar is a dollar. When we are young and our quote unquote bank account seems to be overflowing with days and dollars, does not seem to matter much to us that we waste a day here or a dollar there. But when you're much older, when there are fewer days and dollars in the account, wasting even one of them feels like a tragic loss. Yet the days of the young, the days of the old are exactly the same day. It's just a matter of perspective.

If your perspective is looking into an undefined future, then it is hard to give the proper value to that day or the dollar. But if your perspective is looking at the many past days, then the value of those days and dollars is incalculable. An objective look at our past usages of our days and dollars revealed the tragedy of misusing either of them. The young should seriously consider the costly gains in the wisdom and experience of the old. However, they rarely do. Why? They're terrified that if they get a glimpse of themselves in a few more years, it'll change the way they live here and now. Most of the young would rather live under the delusion of a limitless supply of days and dollars in the future. No such supply has ever existed. Why? Our life is just a vapor.