Wasted Talents

It could have happened Friday, or Sunday, but, no, it didn’t.

We arrived at the gates of Six Flags, ready for our day of adolescent fun, and instead it was then I received the call.

“Jamie, we’re on our way to the hospital.”

There are several choices God has made for my life that I’ll never understand, and having the passing of a beloved family member happen while at the gates of an amusement park—well, I can’t even pretend to understand why that was orchestrated as it was.

As I walked through limbo, waiting to hear news, two Christians passed by me that morning.  I knew they were Christians—or at least some form of believer—by the t-shirts they wore.

One displayed 2 Corinthians 12:15.

And the other Luke 11:35.

I don’t know what significance was held by those verses that morning, and maybe there is no significance.  Maybe the viewing of the verses was just meant as a reminder that even in the midst of confusion, He’s still God, and God’s still there, present in every moment.

There are many memories I’ll cherish about my grandma.

The old house on the orchard in which she and my grandpa lived.

All the trinkets that lined the walls of her house.

The Christmas sacks of toys from “Santa.”

The way she smelled.

Her quiet demeanor.

Seeing her and my dad interact and being able to tell they were mother and son.

The way she would called my dad, “Jimmy.”

The awesome shopper that she was—with impeccable taste!

…the way she called me, “Beautiful,” the final time I saw her.  “Oh, Jimmy, she’s just beautiful,” as if she was seeing me for the first time—or, somehow, like she knew it would be the last time she saw me.

These are the marks of aging.

Being able to drive.  Being able to vote.  Being able to drink.  Having bills to pay.  Root canals.  Doctor’s appointments.  Marriages.  Babies.  The birth of new eras, and the ending of others.  The passing of peers.  Losing grandparents and parents.  Ah, tickmarks on the wall of life.

These are moments where mortality is evident.  Grandparents don’t live forever.  Parents don’t live forever.  We won’t live forever.  At least not on this earth.

And on that day that my grandma left this world behind, on this earth I stood at the gates of an amusement park. 

Maybe as I stood there waiting to enter, she stood at the gates of Heaven, waiting to enter into God’s Kingdom.

Can you imagine?

And I wonder...  Did she know Him?  Did He show mercy?  Was she taken lovingly into His arms?

These are the questions that will plague my heart—the questions I will bring to God and rest at His feet, asking for peace, asking for direction.

If an estimated 146,357 people pass away daily, how many of them are in love with and know the love of our Savior?

The biggest tragedy for a Christian is not our death, for death itself is merely the welcoming of ourselves into a place of which we can’t even dream.  It’s a time for rejoicing.

The greatest tragedy remains for a Christian to be the death of a not-Christian, or a not-so-sure-they’re-Christian.  That is the loss that hurts the worst, because that is a loss.

Spend and be spent for our brothers and sisters, for every day our talents are wasted, lives are lost, unable to be retrieved or rejoiced, for no rejoicing comes in the loss of a lost soul.

When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, "I used everything you gave me."
— Erma Bombeck

John 6:35

Before I came to know God, before I accepted Christ, and before I found Him for myself, I had this far-off notion that Christians were perfect.  I thought they were happy, spoiled people who looked down upon others for what others didn’t have.

Years down the road and much research later, I’ve learned that while there are pseudo-Christians vastly scattered across the earth, there are others that represent a truer image of Christ and what it looks like to walk with Him.

The truth is, Christians aren’t perfect.  Christians who know Christ know this.  They know they will never, ever be or come across a Christian who is perfect.  Even after accepting Christ, we will continue to hurt people and be hurt.  Not necessarily because we are purposefully doing so (though sometimes we do—hello, selfish desires!), but because we’re all sinners in a broken world in a war with our flesh.  And sometimes, as much as we want to follow Christ, our fleshly desires and emotions win out.  This is where grace comes in—and it’s due to come in repeatedly.  Grace to give and grace to be given.

The second truth is that Christians are not above anyone else in the “have” department.  We are not magically cured of all the world’s ailments.  We are not suddenly rich, or wealthy, or healthy, or prosperous.  That’s not the definition of Christianity.  The only thing we come to “have” is the joy gained from releasing our lives from our hands and leaving it in God’s hands.  Now, there’s so much more to it than that—there’s the dying to yourself daily, making choices that God would want you to make, the giving up of being part of a world that you’ve come to feel so natural in—it’s a complete life-style change, because it’s a complete heart change.  JB says it best when he says, “I’m just a beggar, telling another beggar where to find bread.”  We are still level on the playing field of life, still susceptible to whatever life may hand us, whether it be lemons or really juicy watermelon, but our joy is not dependent upon what we receive or do not receive, for our joy is in Heaven.  We are promised a life beyond this.

Christians are not mini-gods running around thinking we deserve praise.  (And if you’ve met a Christian like that, run away.)  We still lose our jobs, break our bones, have grandmas who get Cancer, have cars whose engines completely die out of nowhere, can’t pay bills, have brothers, mothers, sons, daughters, wives and husbands that pass away before their time, have boyfriends break up with us and engagements end…

We lose just like everyone else.

But what we have—what we’ve gained is the knowledge that there is something out there greater than our loss.

It’s the God that formed us, the God that loves us and upholds us when the loss is so great and the hurt so deep that there is no strength left in us to stand on our own.  He is our strength.  Whether we have nothing or everything, we have Him.

The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to him in song.  The LORD is the strength of his people, a fortress of salvation for his anointed one (Psalm 28:7-8).