Not on My Watch

“Not on my watch.” This familiar phrase came into my head last Sunday as I was listening to a message at church. I started thinking about our lives on earth and how short they are. Here we end up on planet earth, at just the right time, and in just the right place that God ordained. For us living here in the West, we have been granted a great privilege. And with great privilege comes great responsibility.

Shop Now

Get your own Wild Brothers beanie.

We not only have wealth and access to medicine and hospitals, but we also have God’s Word clearly translated and available to anyone. We are free to meet together to study God’s Word, and we can openly preach and teach others. Countless millions of people all over the world do not have that same luxury.

So what should we do with these great blessings that we have been given? We need to be faithful with them. We must walk by faith. We need to ask God what He would have us do with our time, energy, and resources. We need to use our lives for God’s glory and the souls of men.

This means being a light to those around us who are living in darkness. This means we need to be engaged (by sacrificially praying, supporting, or going) in reaching people who have not yet had opportunity to hear the good news. We call these people “unreached people groups” and most live very far from our own home countries.

Our watch is now. This is the time that we can be used by God to make a difference across the street and across the world. May we not let time and opportunities pass us by. “Not on my watch” is a phrase that I want to own and I want you to own. By faith may we be confident that we will use our lives well. We will disciple our families and reach our neighbors and the nations!

Squander time and resources and use our few days on earth in a lazy, unproductive way? I don’t think so—not on my watch!