Life as the thimble

When I was a kid we didn’t have video games to consume our time, neighbors were few, and there were only four channels on our television. Monopoly was one of the most popular board games and I remember sitting down to the table and spending several hours trying to achieve complete financial domination.

My strategy was the same every game, buy everything I landed on, hope for complete sets and trade after that. Some games things would just click. Complete sets fell into place, cash was readily available with red or yellow sets producing cash flow every round. Eventually, I would be crowned real estate tycoon for the evening. Another game, I would be plagued by luxury taxes, unproductive properties and several trips to jail. Twenty minutes into the game I would be begging for mercy and any hope for survival was quickly disappearing.

What if as an adult my life was still shaped and confined by what had happened the first and only time I played the game?

What if I were living with the consequences of that game good or bad, forty years later.

That is silly of course. Having a two-hour board game effect an entire lifetime is foolishness.

How does our lifetime effect eternity? In relationship, it is infinitely smaller in its proportion.

To win at Monopoly you have to have the most money at the end of the game, or be the only one left with any money, depending on how cutthroat you play the game. The game has lots of rules but only one objective. It doesn’t matter that your money was always set in nice straight stacks or that your property cards were organized by color or even alphabetically. At the end of the game only one thing was asked, “how much money do you have?”

In a similar way, we will also be questioned at the end of our life. The question will not be in regards to the amount of money we have or how neatly we kept our stuff. It won’t matter if things always fell into place for us, or if we were always struggling. Did we love Jesus, and what did we do about it?

A lifetime may seem like an eternity to us, but its not. We have got to get into our heads the urgency of Christ. How much of our world is dying every day without Christ because we’ve taken our eye off the ball? Our careers, our stuff, and even our families can all be distractions unless they are being used to further Gods kingdom here on earth.

Matthew 25:39-40 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?' "The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

Where's the keys dad?

My life has been filling with more and more little reminders of just how old I am, and yesterday was no exception. I drove my car to the middle school parking lot, turned off the engine, got out and switched places with my daughter. No she’s not sixteen yet, but drivers’ training is just over the horizon and I…we…she thought it was time to get a jump-start. We have a great relationship and rarely butt heads, but I have feared this day for a long time. I will admit I am not a very good passenger. I don’t like sitting in the passenger seat because I often fight the urge to share my insights on how it should be done (just ask my wife). But in this case it is my job to criticize, critique and train, so off come the gloves. We were both prepared for some tense moments and I’m sure there will be plenty, but not yesterday. We had fun.

She did great.

I am very proud of her.