instant

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Everything Changed In An Instant

It doesn’t take long for things to go wrong. In an instant everything can change. 

In An Instant

One minute you’re talking, laughing, having fun, then, without warning, talking stops and you are panicked.

I look back and it’s happened many times in my life.  

Four years ago I was driving to my cottage, it was completely dark, my wife and I were talking, and listening to music. Then, in a split second, a deer ran by the corner of our car and we hit it. 

There was no warning, no time to react. Everything changed that instant. 

I remember 8 years ago, I was playing hockey, feeling fine. After the game I sat down in the dressing room and, all of a sudden, I didn’t feel fine anymore. 

Then 4 weeks ago, Lily and I were getting ready for bed, and we got a phone call that changed everything. 

It was our daughter, Karlie, calling to tell us she was engaged. Well, that kind of news changes everything!

Sometimes a sudden change is not welcomed, but like with our daughter’s news, Lil’s and my conversation suddenly changed in a joyful way.

One thing a sudden change does is it turns you emotionally 180 degrees. You can go from flying high to down in the dumps; you can go from complete exhaustion to totally energized.

When things change suddenly, our response time to it is immediate.

Last night I attended the Kingston Frontenacs hockey game as I usually do on Friday nights. They were playing the first place team in the other conference.

Through two periods they were playing like they were on top of the standings. Though I thought the other team seemed much bigger and stronger than our team, the Fronts were handling them really well.

They had scored some pretty goals and were leading 3-0. You could feel the energy in the arena; you could see the focus our guys had as they played their hearts out. 

Early in the third period we scored again to make it 4-0.

That should have been a premonition – a 4 goal lead is never a good thing. I remember the Toronto Maples Leafs had a 4 goal lead in the seventh game of the playoffs one year … and they lost the game and the series in overtime. 

Well last night, though it wasn’t a playoff game, we witnessed a similar comeback. In about 10 minutes, the opposing team scored 4 times to tie the game. As the time was winding down, it looked like overtime was a guarantee. 

With 30 seconds to go in the game, Kingston had the puck deep in the opposition’s end. 

But with 14 seconds left, there was a face-off in Kingston’s end. They lost the face-off and the puck stayed in their end.  

Just a few seconds left and they would get at least one point and a possible two points if they scored in overtime. 

And then in an instant – 2.5 seconds left to be exact – everything changed. There would be no guaranteed point, no overtime: a fifth goal against Kingston and it was over.

A heartbreaker for sure. Everything changed in an instant.

Here’s the thing: Anything can happen in an instant. When it does, it changes everything. Christ will come back one day and it’s going to happen in an instant. Everything will change. That change will be amazing for some and horrifying for others. Be sure you are set up for a joy-filled change and not a heartbreaker. Place your faith in Jesus Christ. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What memory do you have of an instant that brought you great joy? Leave your comments and questions below.

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I Experimented This Christmas

My Christmas experiment is over – well, sort of.

Christmas experiment

Every year I put something fun in our Christmas stockings. Often times it is some kind of gun that fires foam bullets or flying discs … and for a few minutes early on Christmas morning a war breaks out.

But some years I have put other things in the stockings. There was the year that we all got tattoo sleeves. I wore mine all Christmas Day and felt like I was a biker or something.

But probably the best was the year I got us all hand grenades. I thought they were a great idea, but my wife, Lily, didn’t like them at all.

She didn’t like them even before we tossed one. But after we did, she tried desperately to negotiate a cease fire, even going as far as threatening sanctions (to stop cooking).

But there was no stopping us. By mid-morning there was shrapnel (exploded baking powder and water residue) on the hardwood in the living room, on the walls, and into the kitchen.

That may have been my best year.

This year was tougher, perhaps because I started looking late and all the good stuff was gone … or maybe it was the Liberal government’s fault.

With making our armed forces more of a peace-keeping military than a fighting one, maybe the whole nation is going passive.

Anyway, what I came up with this year was eggs. That’s right, everybody got eggs this year – not Easter eggs but dinosaur eggs.

These were eggs you had to put in water in order for them to hatch. They contained dehydrated animals that expand in the water until they break through their shell and “hatch”.

The only problem was that this was a very slow process. No wonder some scientists think that the dinosaurs lived millions and millions of years ago. It took that long for one of these things to hatch!

In other years we opened the gift and started firing. Not this year! We sunk those things in water and watched and watched, and pretty soon ignored them.

It was supposed to take 24 – 48 hours for them to work, but our guys were pretty shy and it took a week for them to fully come out of their shells.

It wasn’t the gift that keeps on giving; it was more like the gift that keeps you looking.

Well, they’re out of their shells and have reached their full size … I’m not sure what the scientists would say about that.

Our kids have both gone back to their homes so we took pictures for them to see what happened.

But now Lily is ready to throw them out. These guys have just spent one day out in the wild and Lil’s ready to chuck them.

I prefer to let them shrink back to their original size, and then maybe watch them grow again.

… Lil’s giving me opposition, but hopefully I can save them from extinction for a week or two.

Here’s the thing: We like things that are ready to go; we want things to be instant. When it comes to our relationship with Christ, it’s the same. But growth takes time and we have to keep at it and be patient. Take time to grow closer to Christ this year. One suggestion is to read through the Bible this year. Yes, it will take a year and about twenty minutes every day, but you will grow and that takes time. In the end, it’s worth it.

That’s Life,

Paul

Question: How are you going to grow this year? Leave your comments below.