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!”
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 over 20 years and they have two teenage sons. Lisa
administers Fresh Start’s Facebook and blog, and loves hanging out with and
impacting teenage girls for Christ.
