What A Waste Series

"WHAT A WASTE"

TEXT: JUDGES 13-16

INTRODUCTION

I don’t know about you but something that really aggravates me is waste, "W A S T E" not "W A I S T", even though our waists can be a little aggravating at times as well.

Sometimes it seems as though we are surrounded by waste, every where we turn, we see example after example of one type of waste or another.

Aren’t you tired of hearing about all of the government waste that is out there (I think we all heard about the $600 toilet seat, $200 dollar haircuts). It can really get upsetting to think of all the money that the government takes from us (money that we could really put to good use) and not only do they take and spend it (and they are about to take more), but they waste so much of it.

Another kind of waste that can get to you, I know it bothers me, is to see people waste food, when I worked at the restaurant I saw people every day just wasting all kinds of food. I remember one time a mistake was made and about 6 shrimp dinners were prepared that were not needed mistake. And the manager throw them away, he wouldn’t even let the employees eat them, so he dumped every one of them. He had to dump them himself to, because I refused to waste good food like that.

Have you ever found out you wasted your money; the record with only 1 good song, the car that ran good for only a couple of weeks, the movie that never did make sense, ..... Money doesn’t grow on trees and it hurts to waste it.

Just this past Wednesday I experienced another kind of waste that can really test your patience, "the waste of your time", especially when someone else wastes it. To make a long story short, the culprit was the medical profession, and they stole nearly 6 hours from me and didn’t even bat an eye.

At 3:30 I left to take Jean to the hospitals under the assumption she was to be readmitted. At 8:00 I brought Jean home. AND IN BETWEEN we FOUND OUT THAT THE HOSPITAL DIDN’T KNOW WHY WE WERE THERE, and didn’t know what to do with us, I paged the Dr. 3 times before I got a hold of him and found out that even he didn’t know what was going on, he told me take 2 aspirin. take Jean home and I’ll call her in the morning.

The hospital was so ready to get rid of us, because they didn’t know what to do with the lady in #5, they said that Mrs. Best doesn’t have to even bother changing, she can keep the gown and go home in it, just bring it back next time your in the neighborhood. What a waste of time that was, but Jean and I made the Best of it (no pun intended).

Webster’s 9th New Collegiate Dictionary defines waste as follows: to wear away or diminish gradually, to spend or use carelessly, to squander, to allow to be used ineffectively or become dissipated; unprofitably used, made or expended.

Another type of waste that is far too frequent and really hurts to see, is the waste of people’s lives. To see people who have the potential to do great things give it all away or lose it for something stupid, is a terrible tragedy.

Several years ago Len Bias graduated from the University of Maryland, he was a star Basketball player and was the first pick of the Boston Celtics. Larry Bird was excited to have Len on his team and said, he would take the young star under his wings. Len Bias looked to be a sure super star. But one night shortly after he was drafted by the Celtics Len decided to do a couple lines of cocaine to celebrate... well the party didn’t last long! As the drugs led to heart failure and he died that night, what a waste, what a stupid senseless waste.

Len Bais was not the first person to waste his life, we see in the Scriptures many people who could have and should have, been something, they were given tremendous opportunity, but for whatever reason they blew it, people like: Cain (born to parents who walked with God and lived in the garden), Ham (Noah’s son who became the father of the Canaanites), Nadab and Abihu (Moses’s brother Aaron’s 2 sons who offered strange fire to the Lord and were consumed by God), King Saul(an anointed King of God who killed himself by falling on his own sword) And Judas (a man who spend 3 years with Jesus, who ended up hanging himself from a cliff). All of these had tremendous opportunities and all of these are vivid examples of wasted potential.