What Does An Unrolling Toilet Paper Tube Have to Do with Anything?

By: Don Haddix

In some discussions several years ago, a friend of mine said “Life is like a toilet paper roll.” 

Obviously, I laughed and said “What????!!!” 

He went on to explain, when we are young, life seems to go slowly, just like an unrolling tube of toilet paper. 

REMEMBER WHEN?

• As young children we thought school would never end? 
• The teenage years seemed so far out of reach?
• Getting our driver’s license was forever away?
• The Christmas season seemed to stretch out almost endlessly before us?

TODAY’S PERSPECTIVE

Then we grew older. Now we find ourselves wondering how in the world it can possibly be June already, when we just put away the Christmas tree. (Unless we are one of those that has actually just put the Christmas tree away!) 

It’s just like the toilet paper roll. Unwinding slowly at first, but when you get closer to the end of the roll, going so fast! 

All the sudden, I got what my friend was saying. 

Life is passing so quickly.  Our children who were young just yesterday are now grown and raising our grandchildren. 

³ You return man to dust
    and say, “Return, O children of man!”
⁴ For a thousand years in your sight
    are but as yesterday when it is past,
    or as a watch in the night.

⁵ You sweep them away as with a flood; they are like a dream,
    like grass that is renewed in the morning:
⁶ in the morning it flourishes and is renewed;
    in the evening it fades and withers.

¹⁰ The years of our life are seventy,
    or even by reason of strength eighty;
yet their span is but toil and trouble;
    they are soon gone, and we fly away

Psalms 90:3-6, 10

In this passage from Psalms, God gives us seventy, maybe eighty years of life. 

SO WHAT?

I’m a numbers guy – and that means between 79% and 90% of my life has been completed.  I look at my parents and know that they passed at around 73-75 years of age. 

I have some choices to make – am I going to take the American dream retirement route and say, “I’ve done my time, so now it’s time for me to relax and think about myself,” or am I going to take a biblical approach and say, “There ain’t no retirement in the Bible!” (sorry to my English major wife.) 

I have eleven grandchildren that I want to invest in now.  Nine of them have accepted Christ as their Savior.  That leaves two needing salvation. 

There are eleven grandchildren (and three children and their spouses) that need to see their parents/grandparents finish strong.  My desire is to be like Paul (and I know I am nowhere near the man Paul was) as he says in 2 Timothy 4:7, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” 

My prayer is that my children and grandchildren will see what Christ means to me, and that I will lay a foundation for them to build upon.

#finishstrong #putyourpostinthegroundforyourfamily #passingthefaith