End of Days

Yesterday I was at a memorial service for an 81 year old lady who was a mom, grandmother and friend. It was a really nice service. The kind you don't mind attending.

Hebrews 9:27 GW People die once, and after that they are judged.

As I sat waiting my turn at the pulpit [I opened and closed the service in prayer] many thoughts went through my mind. Here are few of them.

1. Everyone will die. - That's the way it is. God's original intent was for us to live with Him. But we decided to do it our own way. Take matters into our own hand, (Genesis 3) Thought we knew better than God and bingo - everyone now will physically die once. This onset of physical death was brought about because of spiritual death. So if we accept Jesus as our savour the spiritual death [eternal separation from God] is stopped and we are rescued from it [we are eternally connected to God]. Like the first death, spiritual death is still our choice, we choose. I for one chose life in Christ.

2. Life is a gift. It is a gift that is to be spent. John Ortberg writes in his book, "Everything goes back in the box." . . . life is a gift, every day is an unpurchased miracle, every second is overtime. . . . I know it (life) is not something we earn, create, control, or sustain. I know that one truth about us is that we forget we are going to die. The other truth is that we forget we are alive."

3. Family and friends are what really makes life worthwhile.

My Pastor told a story at the service about one of his friends who visited a nursing home with a fellow minister. As he went from room to room saying hi and spending a few minutes with each person in the rooms he found that everyone invited him in. They seldom to never had anyone visit them. No friends or family or church family came by to keep them company from time to time. You see these folks never had time for people. They were movers and shakers of their day. Corporate giants, company owners. You know the type far to busy making money. No time left for people. I read it somewhere and made a plaque out of it, "Get involved in the lives of people, knowing that the only thing God will rescue from this plant is people."

4. When old people die, what you see is really not who they were. This ladies son talked about the times she would dance with the family. This lady had tap shoes and would dance and sing and laugh. All I knew about Maria was I saw her at church walking in very slowly with her cane. Not able to walk very good. You would never know that she could ever dance. We forget that old people weren't old all their life. So I wondered, if I live to be old, say 81, and need a cane to get around, will people around me really know who I was and in my mind still am.

5. What will they say at my memorial service? My wife always cries at funerals. One time I asked her why she was crying. She knew the person but not really that well. It was one of those services you go to out of respect to the family more than anything. She said she was sitting there thinking about her funeral and it made her cry. I still LOL when I think about this.

What will your funeral/memorial service be like? If you invest in family, friends and people it will be full of people, family and friends. People will laugh and cry about things that you used to laugh or cry with them about. They will smile and talk about things that you used to smile and talk about. But if all you did is invest in this world, well, then you will have flowers that will whither and die and a really nice coffee that will be buried along with you. And probably you will have very few people at your service. I have been at this kind of funeral also. Not a pretty site.

I know this is not a fun or funny or maybe even an encouraging topic. It was part of my life this last week and I stopped to think. Funerals are a very interesting time. One of sorrow and self reflection. Reflect now - change now what you need to change now. Time is short.

James 4:14 NASB Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.