Thursday, November 05, 2009

Walking to Your Own Funeral

November 5, 2009

Imagine you get the dreaded phone call – your son/brother has been killed in an auto accident. Grief overwhelms you. Relatives go to the morgue to identify the body, glance, turn away, horrified at the brutal injuries.

The next day you stand in front of the casket, tears streaming down your face, thinking, “What a waste! We didn’t even get to say good-bye.” As you mourn, looking at the body, arm in arm with your closest loved ones, you look up toward the door to spot a man walking purposefully toward you. You blink, look at the body, look at the man, look at the corpse, look at the man, look at the dead, look at your son/brother walking toward you!

Your mind struggles to comprehend, “How does a person WALK to his own funeral? Is there a twin you didn’t know about? Is there a clone?”

Flip the story.

Imagine you are driving your truck home from another part of the country. You decide to stop, visit and spend the night with friends. You’re an adult; you don’t bother to call because no one is expecting you home. You get home a day late to discover that your family is at the funeral home. “For who?” you ask. “For you!” Realizing there has been a terrible mistake and your family is distraught (at least you hope), you hurriedly WALK TO YOUR OWN FUNERAL!

“Dead man walking.” True story about 59 year old Ademir Jorge Goncalves, a bricklayer from Brazil.

You don’t have to go to a funeral home to see dead people. They are walking all around us every day. Maybe you are one of them. Hearts are beating, lungs are drawing air several times a minute but they are walking around dead. They go through the motions but have lost purpose, joy, meaning, fulfillment, LIFE! Sometimes they are hard to spot because there are so many of them around. Other times you can see the glazed look and apathy. Maybe you see it when you brush your teeth. The walking dead settle for things that temporarily provide pleasure and then return to living graves.

Jesus said, "I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of." John 10:10 (The Message)

Don’t walk to your own funeral. Choose life. Real life. More and better life than you’ve ever dreamed.

Choose Jesus. Not once, but every day. Discover LIFE.

Boldly, Herb

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