A quick way to ruin your life …

What’s one of the quickest ways to ruin your life?

I’ll tell you in just a minute. First, let me tell you a story …

Unamuno, the Spanish philosopher, tells about the Roman aqueduct at Segovia, Spain (pictured above). It was built in 109 A.D. For eighteen hundred years, it carried cool water from the mountains to the hot and thirsty city below. Nearly sixty generations of people drank from its flow. Then came another generation, a recent one, who said, “This aqueduct is so great a marvel that it ought to be preserved for our children as a museum piece. We shall relieve it of its centuries-long labor.”

They did, by laying modern iron pipes. They gave the ancient bricks and mortar a reverent rest. When they did, the aqueduct began to fall apart. The sun beating on the dry mortar caused it to crumble. The bricks and stone sagged and threatened to fall. What ages of service could not destroy idleness disintegrated.

A quick way to ruin your life is to make it all about yourself instead of serving God and others in His name. When we move away from our mission in life, and over-indulge in pleasure and excess rest and become idle, our lives will quickly begin to crumble. Such is not the case for living a life of service.

“So, my dear brothers and sisters, be strong and immovable. Always work enthusiastically for the Lord, for you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless,” 1 Corinthians 15:58.

“For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. But don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love,” Galatians 5:13.

What are you doing with your life, serving others or letting it crumble in idleness? There is a time and place for a proper season of rest, but never a time to quit your mission for Christ.

Scotty