the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Daily Devotionals
Chip Shots from the Ruff of Life
Software problems!!! That's what the little blurb read right after I lost contact with American Online, my Internet Service Provider. For the last two days that is what I have been seeing as I have prepared to file my column. Very graciously they also automatically reconnected me. Then I got to go through the whole process of filing my column again, and again, and again, and again. Frustration sets in after the fifth time and on the sixth I finally gave up deciding that the column will wait for another day.
Welcome to another day...I hope. If this doesn't get to be filed today then there is always tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day, and the next. Or is there? Most things have deadlines. Ask the woman who has waited patiently for her boyfriend to finally pop the question on one knee. There is a deadline. Many a man has wondered what happened to the love of his life when she married someone else. Simple. He missed the deadline. That's D-E-A-D line. That means it's O-V-E-R.
It's the term paper that is due next period. The turkey that has to be thawed and baked in two hours. The loose pipe fitting that is now under two feet of basement water. The slightly loose button that popped off in the middle of the presentation. There is a deadline. For the most part we well meaning people meet it and then some. But, occasionally it does slip up on us; usually to the wide-eyed response of, "That was today?!?!" Trust me in this one. There is very rarely an extension.
What's frustrating is when the deadline is not day and time specific; it's just coming somewhere in the future. We are warned to be prepared, to be ready, but the deadline never quite comes so we lose our preparedness. What needed to be done is done, but where did we put it? Jesus addressed this very situation in Matthew 25:1-13. He addressed His own second coming as an indefinite time but a definite occasion. Preparedness is the watch word. To illustrate it he likened it to ten handmaidens waiting at the wedding site for the bridegroom with oil lamps.
"And at midnight a cry was heard: 'Behold, the bridegroom is coming; go out to meet him!' Then all the handmaidens got up and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, 'Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.' But the wise answered, 'No, lest there should not be enough for us and you; but go rather to those who sell, and buy for yourselves.' And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding and the door was shut." Matthew 25:6-10 Case closed. Opportunity past. Are you ready for the second coming of Jesus? Nope, wrong question. Will you stay ready for the deadline?
'Chip Shots from the Ruff of Life' Copyright 2010 © Tom Kelley. 'Chip Shots from the Ruff of Life' articles may be reproduced in whole under the following provisions: 1) A proper credit must be given to the author at the end of each story, along with their complete bio and a link to https://www.studylight.org/ 2) 'Chip Shots from the Ruff of Life' content may not be arranged or "mirrored" as a competitive online service.
