Next Practices

The lesson below is a guest post from my friend, Carla Puckett.  She also wrote lesson #336: Plan and Prepare, But Don’t Forget the Present.  Be sure to check out Carla’s blog at That’s What I’m Thinking.

I was travelling early Friday morning at about 4:30, and turned to a local AM radio channel in hopes of getting the weather forecast, but instead got a coast-to-coast talk show.  It didn’t take long to figure out the theme was “what would you do if today was the last day.”  This was due to the hype about the Mayan calendar running out and how the world was supposedly going to end sometime after 6:00 AM on 12-21-12.

The majority of the callers said they didn’t believe the world would end this morning, but they went on to say how they would spend the day if it were going to end.  Most of the callers said they would spend it with family and friends, and one nutcase said he would spend his last day doing something he’d never done before – trying heroin, coke, and meth.  I commended the talk show host for saying “If I were there, I’d stop you.”  But, I digress.

The next caller said something that first made me sad, and then after thinking about it, it challenged me.  The caller said he’d spend his last day with his family, and then he said (and I quote) “If it ends today, hopefully God will see I’m a pretty good person and He’ll let me in.”

It’s sad that there are non-Christians that believe that – all they need to do is be a basically good person and they’ll get to heaven.  You hear it all the time – “I’ve never murdered anybody.  I try to help people.  I’m a pretty good person.”  And it’s even sadder that there are professing Christians that believe that, too.  But sometimes, good isn’t good enough.

I was challenged by hearing this caller, and have vowed to do my part in the new year.  I often get tongue-tied and worry about saying the right things when I try to talk to someone about salvation, but there’s help for me.  All the right words I need to say and all the right words they need to hear can be found in the Bible.

Leap year lesson #361 is Sometimes good isn’t good enough.

– Carla Puckett