One thing I miss about being a reporter is the challenge of meeting deadlines. There were a number of them to meet throughout the day. Some were more critical than others.

Of course, the most critical deadline was that point of time when all copy needed to be sent to the central office. When proof reading was in our domain, usually the preferred deadline for the paginators (those who prepared the final layout of each page before the press rolled) was 9 PM. Sometimes under special conditions the last page could be proofed by 10 PM, but the presses for the paper we were writing for were always scheduled to roll soon after 10 PM.

There were times a news story I would be covering would go past 8 PM. Unless the deadline was moved, that gave me less than an hour to write the article, edit the pictures and my text, and send the copy to central office.

I can remember the hard work many of us put in to it and the push to beat those deadlines at times. I remember looking with excitement at the computer’s time display as I rushed to get done before it turned to 9:00 PM.

After being terminated “without cause,” I ventured back to the realm of self-employment. However, I missed those deadlines so much I made up some of my own. That is still not quite as challenging, because I made the deadlines, and I could change them at will.

Most jobs have deadlines, and for various reasons. Some are more critical than others. What many forget though is that life itself has its deadlines.

Barring the rapture of true followers of Christ, each one of us has a deadline with death. For most of us, that is unknown. The main task needed to accomplish before that deadline is total surrender to God through Christ. Sad to say, most fail to meet that deadline.

By the Holy Spirit, Solomon reminds us of this deadline in Ecclesiastes 12:6-7, when “...the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.”

Happy and peaceful is that man or woman who has made their peace with God through Christ, having their sins blotted out, and they themselves having been walking in the ways of God before their earthly time is up. I encourage you to be one of those, if you are not.