“Live such good lives among the pagans that…they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.” 1 Peter 2:12
Nothing ever prepares you for a death. A young man who used to spend a lot of time around our house was the victim of an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) in Iraq . A friend of our son’s from college, Anthony was often included in our Sunday family dinners. He used to bring over his shirts and ask if he could iron them. We hadn’t seen him in a couple of years since he went into the army and now he was dead at twenty-five years old.
My son talked to him about the Lord; he had even attended church with our family. He had made some mistakes and said more than once that he needed to straighten out his life.
When was the last time you came face to face with the fact that as a Christian your life is always on display? The old adage that you may be the only Bible that someone reads is all too true. Those times that Anthony was with our family we just talked about things the way we do on a daily basis, prayer and the Lord are a routine part of our daily conversation. He came from a broken home, and we talked like we do to our own children, hoping to make an impression.
When we received word of his death, my first thought was the hope that being in such a place of physical danger caused him to think back on his times in our church and with our family and accept the Lord. For now we have to trust to God that he had every opportunity.
I have been in the position of wishing I had done more—wishing I had just one more chance. I don’t like to be there. Have you had the experience of letting an opportunity to witness for the Lord pass you by, only to find out you will never have another? If you learn nothing else, learn from Anthony’s death to always live before others in such a way that they see Jesus in you.
Make the resolve that you will love everyone who comes into your path and do all that you can to show them Jesus. The choice is theirs, but the responsibility is yours.
Copyright by Norma Gail Thurston Holtman. Do not use without written permission of the author.
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