I am precious in His sight. Those He saves are His delight. He will hold me fast.
This post is adapted from an introduction I gave at the funeral of my father-in-law. I will call him Raymond, but that’s not his real name. I hope that the message will be a blessing and encouragement to a wider audience:
I am Ernest, one of Raymond’s sons-in-law. I had the privilege of knowing him in the latter third of his life. Those of us who were familiar knew that he had a certain simplicity about him. His life was not one for the history books. It’s most notable features were his long life of 97 years, his long marriage of 65 years, and his three amazing children. He could not take complete credit for any of these. He wasn’t the central character in the story of his own life. Instead, the events of other people’s stories always swirled around him.
Nevertheless, spending time with him definitely had its rewards. Everybody knew of his astounding memory for people, places, dates and events. He loved to tell stories out of his many experiences, although they might be the same stories over and over. Many of those experiences were unpleasant but they didn’t embitter him. In fact, he had a remarkable ability to laugh at himself. The older he got, the sweeter he became. When I asked his permission to marry his oldest daughter, he gladly adopted me into the family. As the years passed, my wife and I could see something shining out of him more and more. I think it was God’s love.
For God, love is His character. He made all of creation because of His love. We humans are the masterpiece of that creation. There’s nothing I can do to make Him run out of love for me. It’s real, it’s solid. I didn’t, and couldn’t, earn it. God loved all of humanity so much that He freely gave His only Son, and whoever believes in the Son will have everlasting life.
The gift of God’s Son was an expression of love, a real gift, one that requires a real response. Basically, there are three ways I as a human can respond to God’s love: I can withdraw from it, I can try to exploit it for my own gain, or I can relax into His embrace.
Raymond chose to go the third way, to simply receive Him. And everyone who receives Him, who believes in His name, God adopts as a child of His own household. So, from accepting the gift of God’s love we can have everlasting life. We can experience adoption as sisters and brothers into the family of God.
It follows that our external accomplishments aren’t the important thing. That’s not the way that God defines success. What matters is what we allow Him to do for us. It’s not about making the pages of the history books. It’s about God enrolling us in His book, the Book of Life. Maybe Raymond wouldn’t have put it this into these words, but that’s how he was learning to live.
So, one week ago today, Jesus took him home to meet the rest of his family. We will miss him.
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