I wish to discuss plastic wrapping. If you or your loved one works in the plastic wrapping industry, I apologize to you now.

I hate plastic wrap.

A couple of weeks ago I bought an inexpensive set of kitchen knives. It was an unpleasant task to free the knives from their plastic captivity. I discovered at least three layers of wrap around the knives. There are no instructions and no warnings on the plastic surrounding the knives. The plastic was there. It was impervious to scissors. I got out my tin snips and finally made a cut in the plastic surrounding the knives. That’s how I discovered the multiple layers of plastic.

Who thinks this stuff up?

Plastic wrap is everywhere. I have a DVD on my desk right now. It is part of a book study
I am preparing. You can tell the church is behind because there is a DVD that comes with the book study. Do we need to let the church publishers know that there is something called the Internet that has the amazing ability to stream content? Let’s not tell them, see how long it takes them to catch on. It will be our little secret.

I’m not touching this DVD because it has plastic shrink wrap around the case. It will take me days to get the plastic off of the case and then another week to discover the mystical secrets of opening the case. I’m not sure I have the patience or energy to attempt freeing this DVD from its enclosure. We will study the book and skip the video.

Why is there plastic around a DVD case? Is DVD thievery such a problem that they must be wrapped? Do DVD’s cause harm? I might understand wrapping kitchen knives in one layer of plastic, but three? What is going on in our world? Why all this customer-proof plastic? Who are we saving from what?

We need to be saved from the plastics industry. Did you know that a plastic package cut is 10,000 times worse than a paper cut? I am sure there is some scientific study somewhere that supports my thesis. Once you get the plastic packaging opened then you must worry about cutting yourself while attempting to extricate your purchase from the plastic enclosure. I was more worried about the plastic surrounding the knives than from the danger of grabbing a knife blade to pull it out of the plastic tomb. The writer of Ecclesiastes is hollering, “Vanity, it is all vanity.” I think that Hebrew word can also be translated “madness.”

I will not discuss the impossible to open lids on the Tide Pods carton. I have long since discovered that child proof lids on medicine bottles means that I will not be able to open the lid until my normal headache has become a major migraine headache.

If you wrap it in plastic, you make it safe. With plastic it can’t be open, freed, unwrapped or used. The only ones benefiting from this plastic madness is the plastics industry.

It is really too bad that our lives can’t be wrapped in plastic to save us from all the stuff that happens to us. There are real hurts and pains. We suffer from anxieties and heart breaks. Terrible rotten things happen to the best people while terrible rotten people seem to enjoy the best things. Life does not come with any form of protection from the dangers of living. Because we are alive and vulnerable we will know heartache, but we also experience the rich joy in living. Sorry gang, you really can’t have one without the other.

The other night after I finally freed the knives from the shrink wrap, I walked onto the back porch and watched the fire flies. I moved from frustration to doxology.

I thought about how God protects us. We are gathered and protected under His wings. It is a beautiful metaphor reminding us of the freedom we have to explore the beauty of His creation and the protection that is there for us when we can’t handle things alone.

The great news is that God’s wings are not wrapped in plastic!