last forever

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An Expiry Date May Be On The Horizon

Things have an expiry date, they stop working or they get phased out. 

an expiry date may be on the horizon

Have you ever taken a good hard look at your closet? I don’t mean just opening it up and grabbing a shirt or a pair of pants. I mean really looking at what all is in there. 

We don’t do this enough and that is why our closets are stuffed full.

When you look in your closet with a desire to really see what is there, you find things you don’t wear any more. 

In my closet I have a section of shirts I wear in the winter and a section of shirts I wear in the summer. But I also have a section of shirts I don’t wear at all.

Never … any more that is.

But those shirts stay in my closet year after year. 

I have some shirts that I still wear that I’ve had for years. But I have some clothes that have gone out of style or they don’t fit me, or they have gone out of style AND don’t fit me. 

I say that because there are a few items in my closet that don’t fit but if I reduced my mass, I would definitely wear them. I keep those clothes because I have hope. It might be fanciful hope, but it is still hope. 

I really could get rid of a third of my shirts on the basis that I don’t wear them and probably will never wear them again.

I don’t think I am different from most people. We could all do a clothing purge.

Shirts and pants are not the only things that don’t last forever. Almost everything we have has a time limit on it – like the two hard drives I need to replace in the next three months.

I have to replace them not because they don’t work. They have been working fine for a number of years. The company that makes these hard drives has just decided to stop supporting them. 

They are giving plenty of time to get a replacement and are emailing me weekly reminders of their expiry date. 

Hey, they are even offering to give me a discount if I purchase a new hard drive that they will continue to support … until they don’t. 

These drives are not just external hard drives you plug into your computer. These drives attach to your network and are accessible remotely. The information I have stored on them I can access from anywhere at any time. 

But I guess it’s the end of the run for these hard drives. I can still store information on them, but now I’ll have to plug them into my computer to access any of it. They will make great paper weights when they are replaced.

I like the idea of the discount and I probably will take advantage of it. 

Wouldn’t it be great if there was such a discount with the old clothes we don’t wear any more?  

There’s the thing: Everything has an expiry date; nothing lasts forever. You and I have an expiry date as well. We, however, are not going to get emails every week warning us of when we will expire. We need to be prepared for that date in advance. Don’t wait too long. Be sure to have a relationship with Christ Jesus so that when your expiry date comes, you go to be with God in heaven.

That’s life!

Paul

Question: What in your life is expiring that you need to do something about? Leave your comments and questions below.

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Embarrassment Can Last Forever

From time to time I publish an article I’ve written in the past. This blog post is from November 2014, enjoy.

I’m sure everyone, at some point, has wanted to kick themselves for something they did or said.  For many of us, this happens rather frequently … too frequently for my liking.

I remember entering a Sunday School class when I was in my teens and making a snide remark about the teacher, thinking he wasn’t there yet … only to hear the teacher respond. At that moment, I wanted to take my words back.

As I recall, I didn’t remain in the class for the whole lesson that Sunday.  

Then there was the time I was with a bunch of friends on a bus and I saw a man burning leaves on his front lawn. I yelled some comment out to the man which, in the moment, I thought was quite witty.  

But all my friends thought it was lame – I mean really lame! I was pretty embarrassed at that moment, and every once in a while, even 40 years later, I still feel like kicking myself for making that comment.

The times we stick our foot in our mouth – or do something so dumb that the actors of “Dumb and Dumber 2” would be embarrassed for us – stay with us and its hard to forget them. 

But the worst are the times we say or do things that hurt someone else. Those are the worst because it’s about more than just being mortified or humiliated; you’ve caused someone pain as a result.

By the time you’re in your 50’s, you’d think those days would be over. When the person is a loved one, like a daughter, you’d think this couldn’t happen.  

But it did happen with me the other day. I was in a meeting … a prayer meeting. Four of us (my daughter included) had grouped together and shared some personal things we wanted prayer for.

I was just about to pray for my daughter Karlie – in fact, the first few words had come out of my mouth – when my phone started to ring.

I know, you’re supposed to turn your phone off in the movies, services and prayer meetings. Well I hadn’t, and my ringer is a funky piano tune.  

I panicked and went for my phone, quickly swiping my finger across the screen and answering it. 

Of course being in a prayer meeting I couldn’t talk loudly, so I quietly said, “Hang on; I’m in a meeting,” as I moved to an exit.  

That’s right, I left praying for my daughter to answer a phone call!  

I was kicking myself all the way to the exit. And I’ve been kicking myself ever since! 

How could someone do that? How could I do that? What message did I send my daughter in that moment?

I know this is one of those moments that I will cringe about every time I think of it … for years! You can’t take your actions back; you can’t undo what’s been done.

All I could do is say, “I’m sorry, Karlie. I panicked and did the wrong thing. Will you forgive me?”

Here’s the thing:  When we sin, that memory can linger with us and Satan can use it against us to discourage us, to make us too embarrassed to go to God with it. But the best thing, the only thing we should do, is confess our sin to God and move on from there. You can’t take it back. You might not even be able to forget it, but it doesn’t have to keep you from restoring your relationship with God.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What’s one of your most embarrassing moments and what did you do about it?  Leave your comment below.