Long ago I read of a man who when he returned from a church service was asked about the sermon.  He replied, “It was well done, but it wasn’t worth doing.”  That thought has haunted me ever since.  I have often looked at a finished task to see if it was well done, then asked myself, “Was it really worth doing?”

    Not everything is, you know.  Some of the things to which we give ourselves without restraint are not really that important.  It is so easy to miss the important things, and spend time and energy on the unimportant.

    Sometimes we do things because someone asks us to, and we don’t know how to say “No.”  Sometimes we do things because we feel others expect us to do them.  Sometimes we do things because that is the way things have “always” been done.  Sometimes we just stumble into doing things, without thinking.  Not everything done for these reasons is unimportant, but many of them are.

    If we do not keep ourselves grounded in the Word, and sensitive to the Spirit, it is hard to know what is important.  That is further complicated by the fact that what is important for someone else may not be important for us.  Only the things God tells us to do are really worth doing.

    Once we know without doubt the thing is from God, we should do it with everything we have.  Not in competition with someone else, so we can “beat” them, but striving for a personal best:  doing the very best we can.

    I am more conscious now than I have ever been that we have such a limited time to do the work of God.  I can’t go back and undo any of the wasted time and energy.  But I am trying to use my time and energy each day at God’s direction, so I can hear Him say, “Well done!  Worth doing!”