6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” John 14:6 (NKJV)
By Bro. John L. Cash
I carry a very large lunchbox to school. Sometimes people poke fun at me, saying things like, “Hey John, is that thing from ‘The Napoleon Dynamite Collection’?” But I don’t mind that at all. People laughed at Edison and Einstein, too. And besides, my industrial- sized lunchbox is one of the tools that helps keep my life on track.
Not too long ago the doctor told me that I am pre-diabetic. (Historically, this is something that has happened to all the men in the Cash family when they turn 
50.) So I’ve really tried to straighten up my act about what I eat on a daily basis.
I’ve discovered that I can keep my blood glucose at perfect levels if I’m careful to eat the right things. And I’ve found out that if I carry a lunchbox, I eat things like lean meat, non-carby-vegetables, salads, homemade soy yogurt, and fresh fruit. However, when I don’t have my lunchbox, I eat fast-food burgers, cookies, and things out of the snack machine. It’s really just that simple. For me, failing to plan to eat good food is the same as planning to eat bad food.
I heard a good sermon on the radio the other day. The preacher was talking about Mary and Martha and about how Mary sat at the feet of Jesus while Martha was scrambling around with the duties of the house. Usually, preachers blast Martha and tell her that she needs to be more like Mary.
But this speaker said something that has a lot of wisdom. It’s a statement that has stuck with me ever since: “If you want to be Mary on Sunday, you’ve got to be Martha on Saturday.” Clearly, failure to prepare is the same as planning to be absent. The “Lunchbox Principle” prevails again.
This week, let’s do our best to make advance preparations to do the things that are right. It’s never a mistake to make it easy to do what is good.
Dr. John L. Cash is the “Country Preacher Dad.” He was raised in Stuttgart, Arkansas, and has spent the last 28 years being a country preacher in the piney woods five miles south of the little town of Hickory, Mississippi. (On week days has a desk-job at a public school, and until recently taught Latin on closed-circuit-television.) He and his lovely wife, Susan, live in the parsonage next door to the Antioch Christian Church (where the lunchbox-carrying-Preacher has had perfect blood sugar levels all week.) Their kids include Spencer (age 22), his wife Madeline (age 22), and Seth (age 19).
