Deliver. Collect?

Among my many, many jobs as a youth was to deliver the early morning paper.  I was up before sunrise so everyone could have the news to read with their morning cup of “joe.”  Part of that routine on Saturday was to collect for the weekly papers I delivered.  Do you know how many silver dollars I took to the bank every Saturday afternoon?  Well, if I had kept them all, it would have been an extremely wise move!
 
That’s the way it was supposed to work….deliver, collect, and count your profit.  But it didn’t always go as planned.  I discovered the game of “pool.”  Often the pool game with my friends was more important than collecting the money I was soon to remit to the paper.  For a while, telling Dad that “people were just not home today, can I borrow the money to send in?” worked.  Then one Saturday morning, Dad walked in to the pool parlor.  It didn’t go so well for me that day.
 
As you might expect, I learned a couple of life lessons that day.  First, after that fateful Saturday morning, my skill level as a pool player slumped dramatically.  Second, my profitability went up.  And lastly, judgement comes when you least expect it.
 
As I reminisce about that day of judgement, I think about Ecclesiastes 12:14.  “For God will bring every deed into judgement, including every hidden thing, whatever it is good or evil.”  Well, if I couldn’t keep my ‘pool playing’ from my own Dad, how can I keep my secrets from an all knowing, all seeing God?
 
As I think about the answer to that question, maybe I just won’t keep my secrets from God.  1st John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”
 
Forgive me God, not for playing pool when I should have been working, but forgive me for disappointing my Dad.
You are forgiven!
Pastor Allan
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