A FEW THOUGHTS
August 1, 3:44 p.m.We got home an hour ago from the memorial service for Reed. The crowd was large and there were people from at least three different churches who were there that I knew.
All such services are both happy and sad. Happy for the present knowledge that God's redeemed are no longer suffering: yet sad for those left behind that loved them. I told my wife on the drive home that now comes the hardest part for Reed's immediate family.
Following the home-going of someone there is a lot of support and friends close by who steps in to help and comfort. Soon though, life calls and friends will again become busy and caught up in their own day-to-day living. Yet, grief will for a long time still be with those who were closest to the departed.
The first verse that came to mind after I heard that Reed had died was Psalm 116:15 "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints." As always I was reminded that God sees the death of His redeemed children as the exact opposite of how we view it: we are grieving and He is rejoicing. However, for the first time I stopped to really think about it... and then I understood it better when I broke it down to a simple car-trip.
On FB moments after I heard the news I wrote that as we go on a car-trip we might look in our rear-view mirror and see the sad faces of our loved ones waving goodbye as we are departing: however, upon our safe arrival at our destination we will see other loved ones with smiling faces and kisses as they greet us.
So it is at our death... God is happy because we have just arrived safely "home." For Reed, and every other ransomed soul since time began, who has already taken their "walk through the valley," they have finally left the land of the dying... and are now forevemore in the land of the living!
Often we neglect to tell someone something important until it's too late. I wanted to be sure I didn't make that mistake with Reed. So, several weeks ago while he still had some strength I called Him and asked if I could come over? I said I wanted to have prayer with him... that was true but there was more to it than that.
I told him first that I enjoyed his music... playing, singing... all of it. In fact I told him if it were possible to wear out a CD then that was likely to happen on my car player because his tape was playing on a loop. But, I said that more than any of it... I loved the words to the songs he wrote. They are very good! They are Bible-based and some of them have really good depth in the way they were structured. He smiled and said, "You know brother, there were a few times even I was amazed that I wrote some of it." He felt that the Lord had spoken to his heart as he prayed and wrote the words, I agreed.
The other thing I wanted to tell him was that I admired something he did many years ago. He carried a large wooden cross around Louisville and used it to draw crowds for street-evangelism. I greatly admired that. That is exactly what the Bible means that you are not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ. To do something that you know beforehand might draw ridicule from some... then do it anyway... I like that. More importantly though... God likes it!
It's quite easy to stand in a house of prayer surrounded by other like-minded people and testify that you love and are not ashamed of God. Now try it openly and in a hostile environment and see how strong your faith is?
Every time another person leaves Earth who was a soul-winner I have the same thought: who will step up and take their place? I do have an idea. If you regularly go soul-winning... the next time you are out and you knock on the last door for the day... go ahead and knock on one more before going home. In that way perhaps we can make up for the fact that we have one less person out there trying to win souls.
You can always email me at clarkmatthews1@aol.com
posted by Robin Johnson @ 3:44 PM
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