The Most Expensive Mistake: Why Doing Nothing Costs You Everything

Most of us have one expensive mistake we still think about. The used car that died in the driveway a week after you bought it. The timeshare. The gym membership you used exactly twice. You can almost laugh about it now, because it taught you one thing above everything else: slow down and be careful next time.

Here's the deal. We spend the rest of our lives being careful. We read the reviews. We get the second opinion. We sleep on it twice. And somewhere in all that caution, a quiet little lie moves in and gets comfortable: the safest thing I can do is nothing.

But what if nothing is the most expensive mistake of all?

There's a story Jesus told about three people. Each one gets handed something valuable and is sent off while the owner is away. Two of them go to work right away. The third one gets scared, digs a hole, and buries what he was given. When the owner comes back, the first two hear the same two words: well done. The one who buried his? He loses everything. Not because he gambled it away. Not because he blew it on the wrong thing. He loses it because he did nothing with it.

I can't get away from that. The only person in the whole story who gets in trouble is the one who played it safe.

Because nothing never feels like a decision. Nobody gossips about the guy who didn't make the call. Nobody gets arrested for the conversation they kept putting off. Passivity looks responsible. It can even feel like peace. The hole in the ground felt free, too.

But nothing never sends you a bill. It just quietly collects interest.

Ten years of "I'll reach out when things calm down" turns into a friendship you don't have anymore. A marriage nobody tends turns into two people sharing a mortgage and a last name. The dream you shelved to be realistic turns into a story you tell a grandkid about what you almost did. And the decision about Jesus you keep meaning to make — someday — compounds into something a whole lot more serious than a missed opportunity.

I talked about this with one of my kids not long ago. His friends are more into sports than they are into God right now, and his theory was that they'll come around eventually. Sports will end, he said, and then they'll turn to the Lord. So I asked him: what happens in college? He said, well, they'll be busy. After college? Career. Then a spouse. Then kids. Then the kids turn seven or eight and — oh no — sports. He saw it. Some of y'all need to hear it too: someday is almost always a code word for never.

Here's what I've learned, and I'm telling you it has cost me to learn it. The greatest rewards of my life have come on the far side of action. Not comfort. Action. Because action almost always requires faith, and we so rarely do anything that actually requires God to show up — and then we wonder why it feels like He never does.

I don't say any of this to pile guilt on you. I say it because of what Jesus did. He looked at a world that was falling apart, and He did not play it safe. He left heaven. He set out for Jerusalem knowing exactly what was waiting for Him there. He walked straight into the one thing all of us spend our lives avoiding — and He did it on purpose, for you. Your debt was real, and He paid it with His own life, and then He walked out of the grave alive. The most decisive move in the history of the world was made on your behalf. That's the gospel. God is not a hard master standing over you with a shovel. He is a Father who already moved first.

So you don't have to earn your way back. You just have to stop burying your life in the ground.

Here's the one thing I'd ask you to do this week. Pick the one you already thought of while you were reading this. You know the one. The call you keep not making. The apology. The sign-up. The conversation with God you've been circling for six years. Don't try to fix your whole life. Just take the one next step — the one that requires a little faith. That's the narrow road. That's where the life you're looking for actually starts.

If you've been waiting for a sign to finally do the thing you already know you're supposed to do, this is it. Today is the day.

And if you're far from all of this and don't even know where you'd begin, start with us. We'd love to have you join us on Sunday.