"When you're in your twenties you're young and indestructible," so goes popular thought. I must be an exception to that rule. I never thought of myself as "indestructible." Full of dreams, yes, and young, but not indestructible. I’m not sure that ANY of us really thought of ourselves as indestructible; we just didn’t see death the way older people do. We rather had an idealistic view of death: going out in a blaze of glory—fulfilling some great destiny. And older people looked on us and thought, “Yeah, yeah, ‘Ooooh! Aaaah! Destiny!’ Blah, blah, blah, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.”
I still have dreams. Yet what would happen if the carpet was pulled out from underneath me and I was to find out today that there's a festering cancer in my abdomen that is lethal and indeed terminal? What if I found out today that more than likely I will be dead in two years or less? What would happen to all those dreams? Where would my sense of destiny go?
Wiped out.
That's what happened to a young, promising student who was a year my junior back when I was in college. He had quite a bit going for him: Athletic, happy, full of life and the Lord. I think the ladies took a bit of a shine to him, too. In hindsight, and if he would have been one of my students now, I would have said, "That young man has a destiny before him. He would make a good missionary." Then, in something as simple as a road trip from
Still, after his death and at his funeral there were more students that gave their hearts to the Lord than who might not otherwise have done so if he had never died. And if the Lord wills to not return until later, those who followed Him that day will influence their children, their grandchildren, and perhaps generations beyond. This young man’s example and witness is marked on the lives of those who knew him and is sealed with his blood.
I'd call that quite a destiny, wouldn't you?
But what made this young man so powerful in his influence? Just following the Lord? I don’t think so. I know a lot of people who follow the Lord who don’t have half the influence my friend did.
I was reading the Proverbs the other day and came across this: "Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth." It reminded me of what James said in his letter:
Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil. Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins.
Wow! That is really harsh! But it echoes what David said in the Psalms:
Show me, O LORD, my life's end and the number of my days;
Let me know how fleeting is my life.
You have made my days a mere handbreadth;
The span of my years is as nothing before you.
Each man's life is but a breath.
Man is a mere phantom as he goes to and fro;
He bustles about, but only in vain;
He heaps up wealth, not knowing who will get it.
How depressing! Aren't you glad you're reading this? But then we find this in scripture: "Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom." And again Paul says to be wise and make the most of every opportunity. Today is really all we have to do anything.
Maybe that is what made my friend such a prime candidate for people to speak of him as having a great future ahead of him (well...not that he didn't, but I'm speaking of an earthly future). He lived in the now and did as he knew what was right to do. He didn’t wait until tomorrow. He understood intimately, I think, the meaning of those verses. His life’s motto seemed to be, “Carpe diem!” And seize the day he did! He had a heart of wisdom because he was very aware that our time here is limited. Ultimately, he lived—and died—what he used to preach: “Anyone of us could go at anytime.”
See you later…if the Lord wills.
