An article from "Thoughts Of Ida" in "His Heart For You"
http://www.hisheartforyou.com/
I would like to thank IDA, for allowing herself to be an instrument of GOD.
I pray that her life be filled with undying grace and good health.
Eternity in the hearts of men
The phone rang. On the other end of the line was a voice telling me that an elderly lady had been found dead in her home.
When driving to her house, suited in the countryside beside a small lake and with blue mountains gleaming in the horizon, I kept thinking of the phone call I had to make to her daughter. How do you say in a gentle way that her mother has passed away when the person is hours away and there is no way to filter the words “she is gone”.
When I entered the house I was greeted by the cat. He never was far away from the mistress of the house and he used to observe my movements whenever I visited. He sensed something wasn’t right when he was put outside with food and water not permitted to lie down beside the lady as he used to. (… and the answer to your question is: a neighbor gave him a new home)
I walked into the bedroom and there she was in her bed with her hands folded over her chest. Death had obviously tip-toed while she was sleeping and had already set its marks and as I stood by her bedside I felt the same as I would feel for a tiny baby; so fragile and so different from the lady I had chatted with many times during the summer.
There was no way to postpone the phone call and so I dialed the number. The conversation that followed was between one woman crying and one trying to comfort. But words are hard how soft ever spoken and they are not enough to ease the pain for the one who receives such a message. A woman of high social standard, position and control looses control for a moment and is brought back into the state of a child that has lost its direction and the word “fragile” enters my mind again.
More phone calls were made, arrangements were taken, and the lady was carried from her house by strangers and I locked the door behind her for the last time. A strange feeling followed me the rest of the day as if it was a mistake and I would see her again the next week.
Some time ago, through the internet, I read a whole different story from a country far away from my part of the world; involving a young man with his whole life ahead of him; as it seems.
I don’t know anything about this man except for what has been said about him in the media. He gets praise and criticism, often from the same source, and many have their firm opinion about his looks, how he conducts himself and everybody seem to know him although I’m sure nobody does. From what is told he grew up under ordinary circumstances but is now a man of fame and fortune. He is an actor, who has made successful appearances in dramas on TV and film, and he is also a businessman and one of the biggest stock-holders in his part of the world, which gives him the opportunity to buy whatever pleases his eyes, and yet … he is also fragile.
In a moment when his body refuses to cooperate with his ambitions and his “around the clock” work, he has to be admitted to a hospital in order to get some new strength. After a week he stands smiling in a press conference promoting his new book and I wonder what is taking place behind that bright smile and tired eyes. All attention is directed towards him and I can tell he is really focused to hold everything together in that moment. Later in an interview he says that although he has everything something is missing. And so he gives some examples of what he is lacking but words from Jesus to another young man in another time comes to my mind. A young man who asked how to achieve just one more thing … eternal life.
This is two different faiths of life but the anonymous old lady and the rich and famous young man have more in common than we might think..
My "encounter" with them brought these Bible verses to mind.
The word of God says in Ecclesiastes 12
...Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say “I find no pleasure in them
…Remember him before the silver cord is severed or the golden bowl is broken; before the pitcher is shattered at the spring, or the wheel broken at the well
and the dust returns to the ground it came from and the spirit returns to God who gave it.
… and in Psalm 139, King David is aware of the fact that
… all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be…
and so Moses, the mighty man of God prays in Psalm 90
… teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom …
Why?
… Ecclesiastes 3 says:
…God has made everything beautiful in its time.
He has also set eternity in the hearts of men …
… “Eternity in the hearts of men” …God is the giver of the spirit and he has filled our spirits with a longing for - HIM. And nothing can replace that longing for HIM. Not a righteous life depending on my own actions of hard work and well behavior; not millions of dollars to secure the future; not tradition and good heritage; not rituals and self-made philosophy; or whatever can be imagined as a substitute for the only true meaning of life; Jesus. I haven’t by this said that there is something wrong with being rich and famous, being a good person and living a long life as a good citizen but the main question is this
… if Jesus is a stranger to any of us, we have missed it all.
You may be a decent person who pay taxes and go to sleep with a satisfied conscience but without Jesus you are not holy and how do you then enter into heaven? …
Only by accepting what Jesus has already done on the cross. Accept his goodness and turn away from your own actions and turn to his. Stand before God in the name of Jesus instead of your own. If you think it sounds too easy I assure you that nothing about the cross was easy. The blood was real and the price paid was enormous. And the real name for it all is: GRACE
Jesus is the only answer to the emptiness in our souls. Nothing but the blood of Jesus will ever cover the blemishes of our lives that we try so hard to cover up and nothing but Jesus can fill the emptiness that we face without him, if we dare take a look at our lives in a moment of truth. Without Jesus; without his saving arms around our lives; without him – we have missed it all.
In Matthew 16 and Mark 8 Jesus says to his disciples:
… whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world; yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father’s glory with his holy angels.
In Mark 10 it says that Jesus looked at the young man and loved him.
“One thing you lack” Jesus said. Go sell everything you have and give to the poor and you will have a treasure in heaven. Then come follow me”
If the one thing I lack is Jesus; I’m afraid I lack it all. And whatever you and I must do in order to be able to follow him I have to tell you: it is worth it. AND it is a comfort that while we struggle with the decision, to follow him, he still loves us. In his pleading to us to follow, there is no judgment or resentment. He tells us our story honest and gentle and he always remain trustworthy and true to us in his advice to simply follow him.
Paul reminds the reader in 1Cor. 15 about what is most important...
“ Now brothers; I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise you have believed in vain.
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures and that he appeared to Peter and then to the Twelve. After that he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time … and last of all he appeared to me also as to one abnormally born for I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called apostle; because I persecuted the church of God. But by the GRACE of God I am what I am and his GRACE to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them - yet not I, but the GRACE of God that was with me. Whether then it was I or they; this is what we preach and this is what you believed”
About death he has also some comforting word in 1 Thess. 4
“… Brother we don’t want to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord’s own word we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.
Therefore encourage each other with these words.”
When God created man from dust he made a choice to insert something from himself into that form called man. He chose to insert the seed of choice. It is a divine seed and the Creator also chose to LOVE his creation, a creation that is able to love him back. But the choice is ours.
