Left-Over Box

 

Wednesday is our garbage day, but it’s early, so I take the big green can to the road on Tuesday night.  While rolling the garbage can to the street, I noticed something black at the end of the driveway.  As I got closer, I realized that it was my to-go leftovers from this afternoon’s lunch.  My wife had a gift card for Applebee’s, and I had half a hamburger that I put into a black plastic to-go box.  But what amazed me was that I had put it on top of the truck while I helped my wife into her seat and had forgotten that it was on the roof … and it rode on top of my truck for 6 ½ miles!  I went through six traffic signals, four stop signs, up and down several hills, and through several curves.  What finally made the box fall off the roof was the bump at my steep driveway (see my post yesterday).  It could have, and should have, fallen off at several places between Applebee’s and home, but it didn’t.  But it finally fell off, spilled out, and I had to throw it away.  It didn’t matter that the box made it through that first stoplight.  It didn’t matter that it made it through the 55 mph stretch, it didn’t matter that it made it past “dead-man’s curve” near the house.  It didn’t matter that it made it to within sight of my house.  It simply fell off and was wasted.  Hey, that’s true in life.  You may have been a good little child.  You may have been a perfect teenager.  You may have been good in college, and a good husband and father.  You may have been a good citizen and paid your taxes.  But in the end, the question is, “What is your relationship with Jesus Christ?”  Paul said in Titus 3:5, “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us …”  I often told my basketball boys, “It doesn’t matter what the score is in the first quarter, or the second quarter, or the third quarter.  It only matters what the score is at the end of the game.”  When you face your Maker, your good works won’t matter.  Did you accept Jesus Christ as your Savior? is the question.  Hey, have you?  Have you accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior?  Don’t be lost like my trashed hamburger.  Let Jesus take you all the way into heaven.