We’ve all been there. You buy a gallon of milk and now the race is on to beat the “expiration date”. As each day passes you feel more pressure to get that carton empty. You dread leaving town for a few days because you haven’t finished the milk. As you get closer to the expiration date you start eating mixing bowl sizes of cereal each morning. As you get closer to the expiration date you now start "smelling" process to see if it's starting to spoil. What will happen to us if we drink past the expiration date? Will we curdle up like sour cream or worse, get the dreaded hoof in mouth disease? Who determines the expiration date anyway? Do the cows tip off the farmers when they are milked? Do they turn their heads and moo, “Tuesday, June 11th”? How can an expiration date on a product have such profound impact on our schedules of life? When my kids were young there were many days when I would go out late at night in the pouring rain and trudge to the store right before it closed to make sure they had the “good” milk for the morning.
Our life in many ways has “expiration dates” as well. We all know someday we will not live on this earth anymore. A well-known teaching from the Bible says, “there’s a time to live and a time to die”. and to “live as wise and not unwise”. As each day passes, we are coming closer to our “expiration date”. Do you feel any pressure as each day passes to impact someone’s life or to improve your own? When we make a conscious effort to live “as wise and not unwise”, we use the time given to us much like the gallon of milk. Each time we pour a little out of our “gallon of life” we have the opportunity to be used as we were created. If we never use our “milk of life” as we are intended, then it eventually will spoil and be of no use.
Let’s work hard each day and find practical opportunities to use our “milk” as intended so that our investment in life will not be spoiled.
Today, take some time to reflect on your ability to not waste your days so your efforts become “spoiled”. Instead, make the most of your opportunities given you to impact others positively.