Funeral

I sat in a funeral for a young man this morning, a boy really. His daughter won’t remember him, she’s too young; she’ll look at pictures of ‘daddy,’ but’ll never know his voice, or what it’s like to be walked down the isle to her husband by him.

18 years old is far to young to die, but it happens all the time.

Whether the pressures were too much or the showing of love not enough, we’ll never know. But a gun, in his mind, seemed to solve the problems.

Sadly, for him it’s too late. His mother weeps and his father pushes all to not waste their life. The pastor said something about now being the time to think about eternity.

And though while I agree, we should think about eternity, that’s not what we should be worried about.

It’d be far better to think about Jesus and what he’s done, and not so simplistically as to think we only think about him for what we want. No, we think about him for and in all things.

Not just cause we get heaven through him, but because we get God in what he’s accomplished. Not just because we avoid hell, but more so because he gives us himself.

You see, if we only love him for what he gets us we don’t love him at all.

Two Pairs One Table

They were father and son, the father near ninety his son in his sixties. Both bedecked in hats, the father with his bolo tie and boots, the son in a simple jacket.

The gentleman at the table next to them complimented the father’s tie; he said he got it from his wife for their 25th wedding anniversary and the ring on his middle finger she’d given him for their 50th anniversary. The son simply listened to his dad’s tale.

“She’s gone now.” Said the father, the son gently nodding in agreement. Neither pain, nor regret hindered his voice; just the simple fact that she’d moved on was all that could be read in his voice. Finishing their drinks they moved on because, “There are people to see and places to be.”

A few minutes later a couple took the seats at the same table. His salt and pepper hair was in stark contrast to the conversation they were having and the pictures she was holding. A sonogram, a little blip on the picture indicating a baby.

They launched into a discussion rather happily, both leaning closely over the little Starbucks table, of how to break the news to their family. “Should we do Christmas day or Christmas Eve, over e-mail or Skype?” His Scottish brogue said so nicely.

The little table heard & saw both pairs. With what might be the father’s final Christmas, and what is a baby’s first days of life. The discussion of a father and his son, the love between soon to be parents while the world whizzed by in the chaos of shopping, these moments will be remembered more than trifles and gifts.

While the father will lavish his great-grandchildren with presents and his son with the respect of age and the love only his tried wisdom can bestow; while the parents will prepare for the child to come with beautiful little trinkets. The relationships will never be as fresh as they are now.

For the chasm of death will separate both pairs eventually, but it doesn’t now. So conversations and memories are being made and one day the chasm will be no more and the bonds of fellowship will be picked up in perfection more vividly than they were five days before Christmas.

Vacation Thoughts (pt. 2)

1. Breckenridge, Colorado will be the closest to heaven some people will ever get.

2. NorthFace, Chaco's, & the latest & best climbing gear will never save a man... Neither will his intentions.

3. God bring me a godly wife.

4. Rest, rest, rest God us in control, trust him, hide in him.

5. Hey Matt, Chad, & Dave, I finished my meal!

6. This time change crap is weird & messing with my eating habits.

7. From now on the warmth of the sun will & should remind me of the embrace of a loving Father.

8. The Church is an odd organism.

9. I'm ready to do my call.

10. One wreck can quite literally & effectively shut down a large portion of Denver.

11. Home has nothing do with the place, but rather the people.

12. My bladder can last one (1) full gas tank.

13. Kansas gives out free coffee when you cross the state line.

14. People with NASCAR stickers should always be driving faster than me.

15. I find the big pictures of (or about) Jesus on the side of the road creepy & ineffective.

16. I successfully navigated Denver & three other towns in the mountains, but Newton is a screwy little town.

Our Constant Need

Do you know that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach? The one that feels strangely similar to hunger but isn’t hunger at all? Maybe yours is that feeling in your heart, when it seems to free-fall to your toes? Or perhaps yours is the fogginess of the brain, where the simplest thought is the hardest of struggles? What do we need in these moments, what must we have?

Jesus. Not a man to give advice or a woman to listen to the issue, we need Jesus. We do not need to understand the nuances of the deepest theology we just need Jesus.

We need him… I need him to have lived a perfect life. I need him to have been beaten far beyond recognition as human. I need him to have been nailed to a torturous cross. I need him to have yielded up his spirit. I need the blood and water to flow. I need him to have been buried and more than that to have risen from the grave. I need him to be seated at the right hand of the Father on high interceding on my behalf.

Saying, “His debt I have paid and his heart I have won. I have loved him before the foundations of the world were set when You, my Father, gave him to me. He is mine and I will not loose him.”

More than self-help and self-worth and self-love we need to hear of Jesus, the perfect God-Man, doing what none could do and willingly dying for wretch’s sins.

And this we will always need, even when our stomachs feel the way they should and our hearts are stationed in their proper places and when clarity of thought is a breeze. We can never or will ever outgrow our need for the astoundingly simple yet infinitely complex beautiful gospel of Jesus Christ our Savior.