by: Rebecca Tarantino, Intern at Sixteen: Fifteen

What does it mean to waste your life? Does it mean not living life to the fullest? Does it mean not meeting your full potential? Is it based on how you spent your time? Did you live it up or throw it away? What does a wasted life look like?

A question that most people have asked is this: what is the purpose in life? Many great thinkers have spent their whole lives trying to figure out if life has any meaning. For a Christian, this should be easy to answer: live a life holy and pleasing to God, glorifying Him in everything you do. However, like many statements in life, it is easier said than done. Some may not know what that means – to glorify God. As John Piper said in his book Don’t Waste Your Life, “[Glorify] it is more like the word magnify…you make something unimaginably great look like what it really is.” We cannot fathom how great God is, but we can “magnify” Him to make Him look as great as He really is. Everything we do should glorify God. 1 Corinthians 10:31 says, “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” So what does a wasted life look like? It is a life that does not live by this purpose.