Don't count your chickens until the cows come home.

Wednesday. It came up on the radar screen pretty quickly this week. For that, and so much more, we are thankful. It is good to have this time to chit chat on this October 3, 2012. The first presidential debate is scheduled for tonight. It's being billed as a do or die event. Lord willing, while it is underway I will be participating in services with our brothers and sisters at our local fellowship, but, I will get to see it later, and you can count on it, if there are any notable soundbites, they will be playing them on TV and radio until the cows come home. Here's a thought. Wonder which one is more important? Two fellows vying for the so called most powerful position on the planet, or going to a place where the Creator of the world has promised to make a personal appearance. Just so you know, that little idiom 'until the cows come home' has been around for quite some time. It appeared in print in the UK in 1829 but most believe it to have been around much longer than that. Cows tend to come home at their own pace and sometimes it takes them a while. I've heard it all my life. I've not personally studied the coming home behavior within the bovine kingdom, but I never was in doubt as to its meaning. It meant it will be for an undetermined time period and you can count on it to be long.

I've been thinking this week about our eldest son. He has a birthday this week, on Friday. I will have more to say about him then. He will be 47. That produces a strange feeling. Forty seven on his way to fifty. I sometimes have trouble grasping that because I suppose I lose connection to my own age. I am somewhat aware that I am 66 and very thankful for being as well off as I am. However, when I was thinking about our Chris being 47, it had me bamboozled for a while. I just couldn't get a fix on my own age. I suppose it's because I don't think about myself as being the age I am, therefore, when his age came up, I was trying to figure out how that could be, me being so young and all. Don't laugh. What's that? Maybe I never got completely out of my first childhood? That might not be that far off. I sometimes think about myself in relationship to my grandfather and I think about what I remember him doing when he was about the same age I am. I know I would have trouble keeping up with him because he was such a very active person. In his case it was spelled W-O-R-K. Yep. I know what you are thinking. Eventually it will be time for me to act my age. I'm working on it, believe me, I'm working on it.

The Medicare stories should have tipped me off. Right? They did and they do but you would have to be me to get an idea of how all of this together produces such discombobulated confusion. The other thing could be my concern over how I've handled the time God has given to me. That old saying from the poem comes to mind. "Only one life, twill soon be past, only what's done for Christ will last." This is an individual issue. God has equipped each of us according to His plan and purpose. I'm pleased that folks think highly of what they observe me doing in the Lord's service. However, it matters most what He thinks. We need to be aware that we've been given the life we have and as a child of God there are expectations in how we utilize all the resources He has provided to us. You know. Luke 12:48 "...From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more." Each person is accountable for that which is entrusted to them. Maybe that's the reason I feel like I need more time, or, maybe it could be just a little bit of silliness on the part of an old fellow who can't seem to feel comfortable with his own age. What? You will pray for me? Thanks. I need it. We all do. Amen.        .....More later.