Your Password Will Expire in Five
Days
By Lisa Boyer
“See what
great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called
children of God! And that is what we are!”
children of God! And that is what we are!”
1 John 3:1a (NIV)
I don’t know about you, but I have a
LOT of passwords. In fact, I have six different passwords at work alone, and
for security reasons, one of those passwords has to be changed every three
months. I hate getting the “your password will expire in five days” message
because it’s so hard to think of a new password that means enough to me to
remember it.
Once, when I got the dreaded “your
password will expire in five days” message, I decided to try something
different: an abbreviation of a phrase from a song. It was my favorite song at
the time, so I thought I would easily remember it. But the next morning, I sat
at my keyboard struggling to remember my password once again. I remembered what
song I had been thinking of, but had to remember what words I used and whether
I used the whole word or just the first letter of the word, etc.
As it turned out, my new password
was the hardest password to remember ever! It was really frustrating until I
came up with a phrase to clue me in to what my password was. Each morning, I
would sit at my keyboard and quietly say to myself, “Hello, child of the One
True King,” concentrating on each word as I typed the password I had coded out
of that phrase. Saying that phrase made me smile every single morning!
About a month later, I noticed that
my attitude was changing at work and realized it was because of my new
password! Concentrating on those words “hello, child of the One True King” was
reminding me that I wasn’t just a child of the One True King at church and at
home, I was a child of the One True King at work, as well. Each morning, I was
being reminded by my password of His love for me as His child. My Father - -
God - - was in charge and I could trust Him, even at work.
Three months passed and “your
password will expire in five days” appeared on my computer once again. I was
sad to think of how much I was going to miss that password... but then my new
favorite song came to mind and I knew that a password about God’s great grace
was going to be a wonderful way to start my mornings!
GOING
DEEPER:
1.
Is it time to add a new positive
phrase to your morning routine?
FURTHER
READING:
Lisa has been married to Ted for 23
years and they have two sons in college. Lisa serves in Quest 56 on Sunday
mornings at Oakwood.
