Is It Ever Time to Change?

A CHANGE IS COMING

I am-maybe, no longer a Night Panther guy. I need to change my deodorant.

It’s not the name or the smell. I think my body is starting to find a way to smell bad even with it on.

Look, I am from a generation following the Greatest Generation. My father wore Mennen Skin Bracer and Right Guard aerosol spray, because, back then I guess, the O-Zone was starting to smell a little B-Oish. I kept the tradition with the Skin Bracer, an aftershave you use to find in the fine colognes section of the finest department stores.  Now, it and High Karate are in the aisle passed the vitamins in the grocery store. But it is near the deodorant.

     In my early life….

In my early life, well, maybe after I was married, I switched to Old Spice after pulling the cap off of one in the store, smelling it, and liking it much better than the one I was using. It was Swagger which lured me away from the ways of my father. It had a cool smell, lacking the other deodorants slight industrial cleaner smell and according to the cover of the container, the new smell was aluminum free. As if this was even an issue in my list of questions. Like, why is there aluminum in my-anything?

But after decades with Swagger, it too, began to not hold up against the Arizona tempest of heat and sweat and more, well, heat and sweat. So, Night Panther it is. I stood in the aisle and took off the caps and smelled the different scents Old Spice made. Not sure you’re supposed to take off the caps and sniff them. There probably is a rule to that, but how else can you tell it’s something you want to put on unless you smell it? Woman have perfume departments they can go in a get a sample of. Even men do, but not deodorant. It’s a crap shoot picking one. So, I took off the lids and then the little protective capsand smelled them. Night Panther won the day.

     Maybe my body won’t have a memory….

Now, well, now I am back to the shelves to look for a new one for the next decade or so. Maybe I’ll try Swagger again. Maybe my body won’t have a memory of that one and I can wear it and it will last? Arizona is hard on several things, air-conditioners, dash boards in cars and trucks, batteries, feet without shoes. People from around the world come here and decide to climb some of the ‘mountains’ in town. They’re not real mountains, just real steep hills of about twelve-hundred feet or so, and they forget where they are at and where they are from and don’t take water or not enough or they’re out of shape- and wind-up getting air lifted from that same hill. Later receiving a bill for the helicopter and personnel. I bet their deodorant failed on them.

No, I am not going to compare my deodorant to God for this blog. God will always be under your arms when you need Him kind of weird thing. I’m just saying things of this earth, things we make, even something as simple as this, don’t last. You hear ads for furniture or go back to someplace historic and see old homes or buildings still occupied and someone comments, ‘boy they built things to last back then.’ Time is relative. You could say the same thing about the Parthenon in Greece. It hasn’t been occupied for ions and yet remnants are still left. It was made of stone, so they had that going for them.

     God is different

He never-ever fails. We might miss His action. It might seem sometimes He forgot us, but he hasn’t missed a note of the song of our lives. God is not made of stone like the Greeks and Romans imaged them to be. Greece had a temple for every god they prayed to, even a temple to the Unknown God in case they missed one.

We find the One sufficient. He hasn’t parted waters in a while or rained manna from Heaven. He is quieter now. But we listen to quiet. It stirs us to wonder where He is. It is our faith which draws us to Him, and He is there, waiting. Like a father and his child, the child likes some independence and will sometimes push away, wanting to go out on their own. Father hasn’t moved. He is still there, waiting and watching His child stretch his legs and soul.

USE ME TODAY

So, use me today, Dad. Put me where you want me but give me strength to stand there for as long as You need me to. When I fail, please help me up and dust me off and remind me You never fail. Your plans, never fail. Affirm me like you do and whisper, try it again. 

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