This past Friday my wife and I had a really busy day. On the way home from the busyness, I forgot to buy a gallon of milk. So I ended up running out again that evening. As I picked out a gallon, I did what everyone else does. Reached for the milk in the back with the furthest expiration date. The gallon I chose read 4/28/26.
As I walked up to the self checkout with the milk in hand. I randomly thought about a quote I had seen on social media a few years back. It said something along the lines of, “How different would you live your life if we all had our personal expiration dates visible?” Meaning that our final month, day and year on earth was visible for all to see. On that very day we would expire.
All weekend I thought about this quote and very real question it presents. How different would my life outlook, priorities and pursuits be if our expiration dates were visible? How differently would I treat loved ones, friends and neighbors if I knew the day they’d depart? Especially those who’s date was coming up soon. How would I invest my time, money and talents? Would it be similar to the way I’m investing it now? What would I say to people who’s expiration date was tomorrow? Would I make sure it was words of faith, hope, love and truth. Am I telling them the same things now?
A few years ago I came across a few minute video about a young couple who were set to get married in a year. They apparently were starting to plan a big wedding when one of the spouses suddenly fell ill. After the doctors, tests and receiving a final, unexpected diagnosis. The couple found out that one of the spouses only had a year left to live. Shocking to say the very least.
The couple cancelled the big wedding and sold whatever valuables they had accumulated together. They downsized their entire life and got married that same week. They used their money to go on a nationwide bike tour together, stopping at all of the nation parks and places they had always wanted to see together. They spent their time sight seeing, trying new restaurants, laughing a lot and cherishing every last sunset and moment. Especially because the moments were limited and the one spouses expiration date was extremely visible. Within a year they parted ways, one stayed here and the other didn’t.
In the past ten years my wife and I have known a good amount of people who have passed away. Some were with warning, other’s were without. I’m not sure if it’s because we know a large amount of people or because we both work in a realm where people tend to have extremely vulnerable lifestyles. Whatever the reason is or isn’t, most expiration dates showed up suddenly without much notice. We’ve attended so many wakes that I had to go out and purchase outfits specifically for them.
A hard and realistic truth is that we each do have an expiration date, they just aren’t visible to us. Only God knows the exact day and hour that our final breath will be taken. Each morning is a gift and we’re truly not even promised that we’ll see the sunset at the end of the same day. Many people have left this earth and never got a chance to arrive home in the evening or cook the food for dinner they left out defrosting that morning. Life can be very predictable at times and then totally unpredictable at others.
The point is. Plan for the future, but don’t forget that it could never come. Get your heart and life right with God before you stand before Him face to face. There is a definite day of accountability that awaits each of us. Laugh often and don’t take everything too seriously. Times change, seasons change and time certainly flies by. Be kind to people. Leave them with some good memories and words of you that they can hold in their heart. There will come a day when it will be the last time you saw them alive. Pray often, find ways to be helpful and don’t bury your God given talents and dreams. Many have stopped using their gifts and pursuing their hobbies for an American dream that we can’t take with us. Don’t forget that while we can’t see an expiration date. We all have one.
