Dixie Cup

 

Today, I stopped by Costco to get a giant container of fabric softener.  I hated to walk out with only one item in my cart (although it was a pretty good-sized item), so I stopped by the grill and got a slice of cheese pizza and a 20-ounce cup of Pepsi.  My lunch cost a total of $2.34 … another good reason to stop by the Costco grill.  I finished the Pepsi on the way home and when I got out of the car, I threw the ice on the grass watering the yard.  Well, at least one square foot of the yard.  Since I had the lid off of the empty Pepsi cup, I gathered up trash from the driver’s side of the car: an old 3X5 card, a cough drop wrapper, a used Kleenex, and a used napkin.  After I had filled my trash cup, I replaced the lid and carried it into the house to the trash can.  I was reminded of a bad habit that I had developed 55 years ago in college.  In the dining hall, we ate family style with one waitress for a table of ten students.  Often, we had a Dixie Cup (politically incorrect) of ice cream for dessert.  After I finished my ice cream, I refilled the paper cup with a leftover dinner roll and replaced the cardboard lid.  When the server returned (I always did this when she was away from the table), I put the Ice cream cup (looking unused) back on her tray and she returned it to the freezer.  I thought it was great fun … until the time that I got a frozen used dinner roll in my Dixie Cup for dessert.  I didn’t even complain; it was what I deserved.  Hey, in this life, we may think that we are pulling one over on God.  We may laugh at our cleverness.  But some day, we will not be laughing.  And when we face our Maker, He will reveal that all the time He had known everything that we had been doing.  And we will not be laughing because God will not be laughing.  And that’s because to God, sin is not a laughing matter.  Sin cost God the life of His dearly beloved Son, Jesus Christ.  The writer of the book of Hebrews said in Hebrews 10:31, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”  A frozen roll in a Dixie cup may be funny, but sin is not funny at all.  Really.