One very early morning not long
ago Cathy and I were in the house of a young man who had died surprisingly in
the wee hours of that morning. He was a
vibrant, active, bright, charming, seemingly in-shape man who was well liked by
all, and his shocking death was devastating to the family and all who knew him.
So very early that morning, as I
comforted his wife, suddenly I found myself saying to her a really strange
phrase: “Sometimes life doesn’t turn out
the way we thought it would.” I hadn’t
planned that sentence. It wasn’t a
thought I had pondered. It just came
out. I have to believe it was the Holy
Spirit speaking through me.
The truth of that sentence is
overwhelming. Here was a young family
with friends and plans and good jobs and a bright future. And all of a sudden in the middle of the
night, life was changed drastically forever for those left alive. The words I heard neighbors say who came that
morning were “terrible,” and “this is terrible.” The deceased man’s boss was there, and he
said he had an office full of crying people.
I don’t doubt it. We tried to
comfort. We wondered what more to
do. And in the end of course we all could
do little. A surprising death is like
that.
Now, yesterday we were in a
funeral service for a young woman and mother of three. Cathy and I had gone to her wedding not too
many years before. Her husband and his
parents had lived near us. She had been
in a car accident and had suffered a broken leg. But then, two days later in the hospital,
suddenly she had died. Devastating. The church was overflowing with people who
had come. An enormous number of family
had come, because it was such a shock, perhaps also because just two weeks
prior they had had a funeral for the woman’s father in the same place.
So we sat there and heard some
music and some words from the pastor, who correctly stressed he had no answers
for what had happened. Some spoke personally
about the woman in short eulogies. There
were pictures shown. I looked over all
the heads, all the people. And I thought
here now we have a young husband left with three young children, and a larger
family and group of friends and co-workers whose life has been changed
drastically forever.
“Sometimes life doesn’t turn out
the way we thought it would.” I
remembered that sentence.
And as I looked over all the
people, all the mourning people, I thought about how little people know of what
is going on here. How little we all
know, even those of us who are so blessed to know the Lord. And many of those there certainly did. I thought about how people really are
sheep. As Jesus said to me once in a
service, they really are sheep, aren’t they, John?” The answer is yes, they are. Yes, we all are (Sheep are animals that very
much need a shepherd to thrive and even survive.).
If we ever get deep enough in our
contemplations to think about life and where we are and what is happening,
goodness, yes, people are sheep. Thank
God for those who believe and know the Lord.
We have the peace of knowing where our loved deceased are and where we
will eventually be – with the Lord!
Thank God for that peace.
But why these surprising deaths
of such apparently good people at the prime of their lives, deaths that so hurt
so many? Oh, certainly, yes, God will
and does use their deaths to work in the lives of those impacted. But doesn’t the Bible say why die before your
time? Yes, it does. In Ecclesiastes 7:17. It also says over in Isaiah 57:1 that God may
take a good man away early to spare him from what is coming. Difficult thoughts to fully grasp.
Imagine the terror of those who
do not know God at all when they confront something like these two deaths! Imagine their horror. And anger.
And fear. And panic. And pathos.
This is a strange strange world
in which we live, dear friends. I have
said that more than once, and as the years go by and I see and experience more
and more, I see that is so more and more.
We have a wonderful God – Father, Son, Holy Spirit – and we know all he
reveals to us and all we are open to receive.
And even with all that, we know so little.
In recent months I have been
pressed somehow to consider more and more just how beyond our comprehension God
truly is. Imagine if you can (you really
can’t fully) just how and who this God is.
Imagine a being who can construct a world, planets, people, a universe,
a solar system, a galaxy. The mind reels
just thinking about it. And this Jesus
is his son, his first son, his only son.
We too are adopted in as sons of God.
How wonderful is that. But
imagine who and what we are talking about.
If we spend much time reflecting
on that, speaking about that, praying about that, we will be staggered. We just don’t know. What is truly going on? Well, we do have some knowledge, the guidance
that there is a mammoth battle between good and evil that is soon coming to a
culmination. We are indeed even living
in the last of the days before that time.
We do understand there is a huge spiritual world out there that we
really don’t see or comprehend. Only
once in a while, those who are truly in touch with God, with the Holy Spirit,
sense some depth of that. Sometimes
people see an angel or two. And yes,
sometimes real believers see God’s miraculous work right in front of their
eyes. We do. I hope you do. We certainly also see marvelous divine
healings of people with serious problems.
But the fullness of God? Wow.
Remember Paul’s great prayer that we would comprehend the length and
width and height and depth of the love of Christ? God.
Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit. Even our most serious churches sometimes
speak too flippantly in referring to them.
Awe is the word. Awe is the feeling.
One famous pastor of old, Oswald
Chambers, says that the closer we get to God the more we realize how little we
know.
Well. One thing we do know – that in all things God
works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his
purpose (Romans 8:28).
We put ourselves in Jesus’s
hands. He is our shepherd and we his
sheep. We keep our eyes on him. He is our hope. Our only hope. Without him, no hope. Thank God he came two thousand years ago and
went through with the plan his father and he had to redeem humankind. And thank God he is coming back soon!
Keep Your Eyes on Jesus!
(October 2015)
Copyright © 2015 by John
Newlin
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