The Facts of Life

There was a show in the 1980s called The Facts of Life, which was about 4 vastly different (from each other) girls who went to a private school and lived off campus with a ‘Den Mother’. As did all shows back in the day, The Facts of Life had a weekly opening, complete with a theme song. Even now, many years removed, I can still hear some of the words to the song … 

“...You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have, the facts of life”...

In the show, one of the girls was usually going through a crisis of some kind and the den mother (Mrs. Garrett for those of you trying to remember the show) would usually impart some sort of wisdom to guide the girls through the, well, facts of life. Every now and then though, it was Mrs. Garrett who faced a crisis and the girls would pull together to help her figure it out. As shows tended to do back then, someone – if not everyone – was taught a moral and valuable lesson about life.

While a lot in this world has changed since the days of Jo, Blair, Natalie and Tootie (in case you were racking your brain to remember their names), the facts of life have not changed at all … and I don’t mean the show. I am referring to life itself. Life is still good and bad. Life still has ups and downs. Life still has calms and crises. Life still has a beginning and an end.

Years ago, my friend, Dan Pickett, wrote a song titled “Let Your Dash Make a Difference” in which he sang about the middle part of life. The part of life that is recorded on a tombstone between the born and death dates … the tyme of life when you actually lived. His basic point was the ‘Fact of Life’ that we all have a span of tyme here on this earth and we need to use it wisely.

Sadly, it seems, many people have not heard my friend’s song because, through their choices, they tend to squander their dash away. Some spend their dash on hurting others, while some spend it on hurting themselves. Choices like using drugs, abusing alcohol, violence, stealing and a myriad of other things deplete their ability to let their dash make a difference...well, not a good difference anyway.

The other day, I decided to go out to my car to eat lunch. My job is very taxing and sometymes leaving the building, even if just for 20 minutes, helps me recharge enough to get through the rest of the day. My car was parked in a spot that allowed me to look out at the road near a busy intersection. It wasn’t long into my much needed break, when I saw a truck and trailer go by. The trailer was loaded with nearly a dozen wrecked and crushed vehicles.

As it neared the intersection, the trucked slowed down and I surveyed the now piles of scrap metal. I couldn’t help but wonder what happened to get those once perfect vessels into their current state of destruction. Were they involved in accidents? Had they been neglected or mistreated to the point where they could no longer function? Alas, there was no way to satisfy my curiosity, so as the truck pulled the trailer through the intersection, I turned my thoughts back to my lunch.

Since my lunch was simply a protein bar, it wasn’t long until my attention returned to the busy intersection. When I looked over this tyme, I saw a truck and trailer coming from the opposite direction of the first one. Much to my surprise, this truck was hauling a trailer filled with bright, shiny new vehicles. I couldn’t help but stare in amazement...not because I was impressed with the new vehicles, but because my work is no where near a car dealership. Never, in my nearly 20 years in that area, had I witnessed a trailer load of new vehicles go through that intersection. It was in that moment that I knew God was illustrating a point to me about the facts of life...about ‘the dash’.

When God created humans, He gave them a free will, the ability to make their own choices. He did that so that they could freely choose to love Him. We’ve probably all been in a situation at some point where we wanted someone to choose us, to love us for no other reason than because they wanted to. That is what God wants from humans. He wants us to choose Him, to love Him for Who He is. Sadly, that free will He gave us, to allow us choose Him, allows us to make other choices … bad choices ... as well.

The bad choices ... the choices to fill the place meant only for God with things other than Him … are what depletes our dash. Drugs, lies, alcohol, crime, resentment and the like, are the things that crush us like those vehicles on the first trailer. Before we know it, we are wrecked and being hauled off to a place of eternal destruction, but that doesn’t have to be the end of our journey.

As I watched that trailer filled with brand new vehicles (I still have yet to figured out where that truck was taking them) I had a vision of what God not only can do, but will do when He is asked. He is able and willing to take the crushed, the wrecked and the seemingly worthless and make them brand new, beautiful and priceless.

In that remarkable illustration when one trailer of crushed vehicles drove by and in the blink of an eye (or bite of a protein bar) a trailer of shiny, new vehicles passed by the other way, I saw that the bad choices...the ‘dash destroyers...do not have to define anyone. If a person is willing to give their crushed heart to God, He can and will make it brand new. All it takes is a sincere and repentant soul that wants Jesus Christ as its Savior.

After instructing and counseling them on many facts of life, the apostle Paul concludes his letter to the Corinthians (Book 2, chapter 5, verse 17) by saying, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” In short, Paul was saying watch those old, crushed vehicles go and look at the new, shiny ones coming.

No matter how many destructive dash decisions we have made, God can and will help us turn things around so our dash will make a valuable and lasting difference. When we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior, all of our previous dash decisions no longer define us. We will go from wrecked to restored in that instant and others will notice. Our lives will change to a point that when our dash is etched in stone, those who knew us will know we have THE Fact of Life.