Birthday Card Guilt

Do you ever feel like you should repent because you have been in a card store reading Birthday cards?  

February and March are big birthday months for our families so I had to spend some time looking for the “right” card for several people.  I admit that I laughed out loud at some and at others I kind of winced and hoped no one saw me with it in my hand.  The problem is that you can’t know until you’ve read it if it’s clean or filthy.  They’re all together if you want a humorous card. 

I did buy some but afterwards wondered if I should have spent my money in a store that offered some pretty raunchy cards.  The ones I had chosen aren’t bad but then I came home and sat down at my desk and saw the verse I keep by my computer.  It’s Psalm 110:37 which says, “Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways.” 

I put this verse where I’ll see it every time I sit down at my computer to remind me that I shouldn’t be wasting a lot of my time looking at worthless websites and playing games that are non-productive.  Over time I admit that I had almost forgotten it was there.  I’m so used to seeing it that it doesn’t have the desired effect anymore. 

But today it stood out like a neon sign! Isn’t that how God’s Word works? If we have spent some time in it and especially if we have it sitting around us so we physically see it all the time, the Holy Spirit will use it when the time is right.  I don’t think that the card store at the mall would post this sign over their doorposts for me so I need the Holy Spirit to remind me – and He knows when to present it!

 I will have to pray about this and try to understand what God wants for me.  I am not sure I need to stay out of every card store or stop sending funny cards at birthdays.  I’m getting to the age where if I don’t find humor in growing older I will just get sad at every birthday that reminds me that my friends and I are aging.  But really, some of the stuff I was exposed to in that card store today should have been in an X-rated section! It seems that the general feeling must be that if you’re old enough to read you’re old enough to handle the “humor” in those cards.  What’s a Christian to do?

At the very least I will be more careful about what I look at and “turn my eyes from worthless things” as I know God wants me to.  Perhaps I need to look for a new card store – do Christian stores sell funny cards? It’s funny that I have never looked because I don’t expect them to! I hope that I’ve underestimated them.  It would be great for my next card buying experience to be guilt free!