Wasted years – the years that we often regret spending, years that were marked by wrong decisions, failed attempts at many things, days that were just full of failures, mishaps and many other unwanted things. These years were full of the experiences we don't want to go back to, and would always avoid experiencing once more.
Most often these years bring with them some amount of pain whenever we remember them. At times, we loathe ourselves for what we have done or failed to do. Yet, in all those years, what we have failed to realise is that God was with us all along. He's just there.
God Was With Us All This Time
Whenever I think of this, a song from the Christian rock band Pillar comes to mind. The chorus from the song "Rewind" simply says what I want to say:
"If I could rewind, watch all my life
Just pass me by, I could see You
If I could rewind, I'd take back the lies
And all of those times I hurt You"
What we often forget is that God was there with us as we wasted all those years. I'm not here to bash anybody for doing that. I'm here to encourage you: There's hope for all our wasted years.
Romans 8:28 tells us "...that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them." Truth be told, my friends, God can use all our wasted years to bring about His purposes for our lives.
Redeemer of Our Lives
The Bible says God is our Redeemer. To redeem means to "gain or regain possession of something in exchange for payment," and to "compensate for the faults or bad aspects of something." We need to understand what this implies and how it relates to what God wants to do to our wasted years.
First, we realise that Christ offered His blood as payment so that God could regain possession of us (see 1 Timothy 2:6). Before Christ came, all of us belonged to the kingdom of darkness, under the lordship of sin. But when Christ came, He purchased all of us with His own precious blood and took us away from it. (see Colossians 1:13-14)
We must realise that Christ purchased us whole – not just the present and the future aspects of our lives. He paid for our sins, including all our deepest and darkest sins hidden in our past. He bought us and owned us, dirty and stained and all, and washed us clean with His blood. We are forgiven. (see Isaiah 1:18)
Now what about our wasted years? The second definition speaks well of that. God sent His Son to die for us "while we were still sinners" (see Romans 5:6-8). His salvation included our status as sinners. In fact, if we weren't sinners, there's no need for us to be saved at all. But because all of us are sinners, Christ needed to die for our salvation (see Hebrews 2:14-15).
Christ died knowing very well that we were deep in sin. Our wasted years were products of sin, the product of the devil's rampage to destroy all that God had created and loved. Christ, however, came to destroy the works of the devil, and restore us back to who we really are in Him: sons and daughters of the Father.
Our wasted years, then, become beautiful testimonies of how and from what Christ saved us from. They become pictures of our life before we followed Him. Our wasted years become significantly contrasting images to the beautiful present and wonderful future that God has prepared for us.
Look At What God Is Doing Now
Friends, looking back to our wasted years without the redemption of God wastes our present. We must choose instead to look at what God is doing now, and realise that indeed He is our Redeemer who rescued us from demise and brought us into the Kingdom of His dear Son.
If you're still brooding over your wasted years, here's what God is telling you: "Stop dwelling on past events and brooding over times gone by; I am doing something new; it's springing up — can't you see it? I am making a road in the desert, rivers in the wasteland." (Isaiah 43:18-19)
