Expiration Date

 

I like cream in my coffee.  No sugar, but a lot of cream.  I think I got that habit because when I was just a little fellow, my Granny Whitely used to give me coffee with a lot of cream in it.  I took a pint of cream to cardiac rehab a while back and left it in the refrigerator.  So, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I enjoy a cup of coffee with my cream.  But, since I only use a small bit, the pint of cream has lasted a long time.  A looooooong time!  Last week I began to be concerned that the cream was going past its “expiration date.”  But I couldn’t read the printing on the crimped top!  Those dot matrix printers can be problematic.  So, Monday, I brought a fresh pint of cream and pitched what was left of my questionable cream.  I heard a radio preacher speaking about manna that the Israelites had in the wilderness, and I realized that the manna also had an “expiration date” ... of one day!  Except on Fridays.  On Friday manna had an expiration date of two days!  Hey, there are many things in life that have expiration dates.  They aren’t like pints of cream; they aren’t printed anywhere, but there have expiration dates just the same.  There are limited times that you have to enjoy your children.  There is an expiration date on each of our lives.  There is a limited time that we have to work and save for the future.  And there is a limited time that we can work for the kingdom of God.  Solomon said in Ecclesiastes 3:1, “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”  We have only a brief time to live here on earth, and then we must face our “expiration date”.  Hey, be ready for that “expiration date”.  Don’t let it catch you off guard and leave a sour taste in your mouth.  Get it?