Faith

Expiry Dates

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Let’s play a game.

Go to your refrigerator and see how many things you can find that are expired. (ok go!)

Welcome back! How many things did you find? One? Five? Twenty-five? None?

I did this the other day and will not admit to how many things I found, but lets say it was a good idea that I played the game. Now, you may be wondering why we are playing this silly little game. There are good reasons, other then the fact that your fridge is now clean and you can eat anything in there with no fear!

We live in a world that is consumed with expiry dates. We look at when milk will expire before we buy it, we put deadlines on everything, and use things until they die or expire. Think about it. Every day your life is filled with things that have eventual expiry dates. And this is a very good thing in most cases. Eating food that has expired can be very bad for your health. The problem comes when we translate this thinking into our spiritual lives and start putting expiry dates on the things that are outside of our control.

If I am not married by this date, it won’t happen.

If they don’t get better by now, its hopeless.
If the money doesn’t come today, what will happen?

If the scholarship doesn’t come, how will I go to school?

Will I ever figure out what to do or will I be 40 and still wandering around aimlessly?
When am I going to get pregnant? 
And the list could go on..

And maybe you have been there. Sitting in the dark, waiting for the impossible and wondering if it is ever going to happen. Maybe you put your own expiry date on the situation. Maybe you stopped believing that we serve a God that has NO expiry dates. 

Let that sink in.

With God there are NO expiry dates. 

In our eyes, it may seem that way. It may seem impossible, but what is impossible with man is possible with God. 

But what if they don’t get better you ask? What if I never get married? What if the baby never comes?

Have God’s promises expired? NO. Because He doesn’t put expiry dates on situations. He puts due dates. And His due dates are often drastically different then our expiry dates. See, its not about what we can’t do, but what HE can do. It’s about going back to the drawing board and not limiting God to our time table. Even in this life if it appears the situation has expired, we must remember that perhaps God’s due date was calling someone home to Him. Or perhaps the due date is just years after we imagined it would be.

Check out Abraham and Sarah (Hebrews 11:8). God told her she would bear a son. And yet, it was years and years later, long after Sarah was considered able to have child, that she was finally pregnant. But because she put an expiry date on the promise, and God failed to meet that timeline, she got involved and caused a whole mess of problems. When we act on our timeline, we fail to see that God’s timeline is really about Him. Its about a God who still does the impossible. Its about a God who wants to show His glory and who still acts in ways that are beyond human understanding and recognition. 

So, ask yourself. Do you really trust and believe in Him who promised to be faithful? Can we give up our timelines and expiry dates for a God that offers only due dates? Can we begin to live as though we serve a God still in the business of doing the impossible?

I am working on it. And today I challenge you. What situation have you put an expiration date on that perhaps God has just put a longer due date on? Where in your life do you need to step out of your timeline and into God’s timeline?


(Blog idea credit goes to an amazing sermon I heard at Hillsong)

aspiring writer, mom to two sweet boys, lover of adventure, people, Jesus, and hot tea

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