Sitting in a funeral home with people you don’t know is not one of my favorite pastimes, but when you are married to a pastor it happens. It’s always a time of reflection, especially when there isn’t much of an emotional connection. The conversations swirl around you about the pictures flashing on a screen.
“ Is that Uncle _____? He was handsome!”
“There’s Aunt_____. That was at _______’s wedding.”
“Oh, I remember that!” And so it goes—family and friends remembering, sharing, laughing, reliving a life that is gone.
I’m sure my focus is razor sharp because of the rescent anniversary date marking one year ago when it was my mom, my family, my memories.
And then I think ahead when all those pictures will be about me! I know that sounds morbid but I don’t mean it to be. This is not morbid self-introspection, but a healthy, albeit difficult, look at life. Captured in a few photos on a screen, it seems so short, so insignificant, and yet it represents so much: family, work, celebrations, joy, love—life!
Ninety-three years of living ended last week, but then for this born-again believer, his life is really just beginning. I often think of our lives here on this planet as the nine months we spend in our mother’s womb. It seems so normal. It’s all we know, and when we have to leave it, we cry. It might be because of pain. It might be because of fear of the normal. But at that moment, life as we had known–all that we had known–is done and we slip into another world, a world so much bigger and brighter and scary.
Ecclesiastes 8:8 (NKJV) says, “No one has power over the spirit to retain the spirit, And no one has power in the day of death. [There is] no release from that war”
Quite a statement from the wisest man that ever lived! Matthew Henry says this in his profound yet quaint way:
Death is an enemy that we must all enter the lists (barriers enclosing a tournament area for jousting) with, sooner or later: There is no discharge in that war, no dismission from it, either of the men of business or of the faint-hearted, as there was among the Jews, Deu. 20:5, 8. While we live we are struggling with death, and we shall never put off the harness till we put off the body, never obtain a discharge till death has obtained the mastery; the youngest is not released as a fresh-water soldier, nor the oldest as miles emeritus-a soldier whose merits have entitled him to a discharge. Death is a battle that must be fought, There is no sending to that war (so some read it), no substituting another to muster for us, no champion admitted to fight for us; we must ourselves engage, and are concerned to provide accordingly, as for a battle.
It’s now Sunday morning. Last evening, we watched “Greater,” a movie based on the true story of Brandon Burlsworth, a walk-on college player who became an All-American and was then drafted by the Cincinnati Colts. It’s a tragic story about a young man who dared to do the impossible. What he accomplished in his twenty-two years of life was nothing short of miraculous, all because he followed what some might call his dream. Others would label it as a call from God. He will go down in football history as the most successful walk-on, but that wasn’t his greatest success.
As the film progresses, you see the impact that his lived-out faith is having on the other players–teammates who ridiculed him, even telling him to quit… but he didn’t.
Are you living a great story? What will it look like in pictures on a screen? Yesterday’s bookend experiences made me think. It’s not the length of days we’re given, the amount of money we’ve earned, the number of children we’ve been blessed with, the number of miles we travel, or the size of our home that determines the worth of our lives. Simply put, it’s all about Jesus.
1 I wonder, have I done my best for Jesus,
Who died upon the cruel tree?
To think of His great sacrifice at Calv’ry!
I know my Lord expects the best from me.Refrain:
How many are the lost that I have lifted?
How many are the chained I’ve helped to free?
I wonder, have I done my best for Jesus,
When He has done so much for me?2 The hours that I have wasted are so many,
The hours I’ve spent for Christ so few;
Because of all my lack of love for Jesus,
I wonder if His heart is breaking too. [Refrain]3 I wonder, have I cared enough for others,
Or have I let them die alone?
I might have helped a wand’rer to the Saviour,
The seed of precious Life I might have sown. [Refrain]4 No longer will I stay within the valley–
I’ll climb to mountain heights above;
The world is dying now for want of someone
To tell them of the Saviour’s matchless love. [Refrain]
The author, Edwin E. Young, was born in Unidilla, Nebraska in 1895, right about the time when Laura, Almanzo, and Rose Wilder were leaving South Dakota and traveling to Missouri. He served as Dean of the School of Music at Hardin-Simmons University, Abilene, Texas (1934–56) and died in 1980. We know next to nothing about this man and yet even now, today, his words might just touch a heart and encourage someone to live for Jesus—the ultimate element for a life celebration in this life and the next.
We never know the impact we are having on those around us. We don’t need to know, we just need to live! Can you think of a seemingly “little” way that we can shine for Jesus, one of those “cups of cold water” moments?
“For whoever gives you a cup of water to drink in My name, because you belong to Christ, assuredly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.”
Mark 9:41
(NKJV)
Beyond Common Sense 