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The time that we have on this earth is very precious and very short when
compared to eternity's length. What is even more precious about our life
is that we never know when it will end. It is important that we both live
our life to its fullest and in living we should always be quick to tell our
family and friends that we love them. Words unspoken and assumed can never
replace the intimate and personal touch of our loving affection and
appreciation towards those around us. We need to tell those that we love
and care for that they are greatly loved and appreciated. Don't assume
your spouse or children already know that you love them, but rather take
the time to say those three precious words, "I Love You".
This is a great story that shows how love conquers all. I hope you are
inspired and challenged by today's message to share your feelings with your
loved ones because you never know when this privilege will be taken from you.
TELL THEM
Some 14 years ago, I stood watching my university students file into the
classroom for our opening session in the theology of faith. That was the
day I first saw Tommy. He was combing his hair which hung six inches below
his shoulders. My quick judgment wrote him off as strange--very strange.
Tommy turned out to be my biggest challenge. He constantly objected to or
smirked at the possibility of an unconditionally loving God. When he
turned in his final exam at the end of the course, he asked in a slightly
cynical tone, "Do you think I'll ever find God?"
"No," I said emphatically.
"Oh," he responded, "I thought that was the product you were pushing."
I let him get five steps from the door and then called out. "I don't think
you'll ever find Him, but I am certain He will find you." Tommy shrugged
and left. I felt slightly disappointed that he had missed my clever line.
Later I heard that Tommy had graduated, and I was grateful for that. Then
came a sad report: Tommy had terminal cancer. Before I could search him
out, he came to me. When he walked into my office, his body was badly
wasted, and his long hair had fallen out because of chemotherapy. But his
eyes were bright and his voice, for the first time, was firm.
"Tommy! I've thought about you so often. I heard you were very sick," I
blurted out.
"Oh, yes, very sick. I have cancer. It's a matter of weeks."
"Can you talk about it?"
"Sure. What would you like to know?"
"What's it like to be only 24 and know that you're dying?"
"It could be worse," he told me, "Like being 50 and thinking that drinking
booze, seducing women, and making money are the real biggies in life."
Then he told me why he had come. "It was something you said to me on the
last day of class. I asked if you thought I would ever find God, and you
said, 'No,' which surprised me. Then you said, 'But He will find you.'"
"I thought about that a lot, even though my search for God was hardly
intense at that time. But when the doctors removed a lump from my groin and
told me that it was malignant, I got serious about locating God. And when
the malignancy spread into my vital organs, I really began banging against
the bronze doors of heaven. But nothing happened. Well, one day I woke up,
and instead of my desperate attempts to get some kind of message, I just
quit. I decided I didn't really care about God, an afterlife, or anything
like that. I decided to spend what time I had left doing something more
important."
"I thought about you and something else you had said: 'The essential
sadness is to go through life without loving. But it would be almost
equally sad to leave this world without ever telling those you loved that
you loved them.' So I began with the hardest one: my dad."
Tommy's father had been reading the newspaper when his son approached him.
"Dad, I would like to talk with you."
"Well, talk."
"I mean, it's really important."
The newspaper came down three slow inches. "What is it?"
"Dad, I love you. I just wanted you to know that."
Tommy smiled at me as he recounted the moment..."The newspaper fluttered to
the floor. Then my father did two things I couldn't remember him doing
before. He cried, and he hugged me. And we talked all night even though he
had to go to work the next morning."
"It was easier with my mother and little brother," Tommy continued, "They
cried with me, and we hugged one another, and shared the things we had been
keeping secret for so long. Here I was, in the shadow of death, and I was
just beginning to open up to all the people I had actually been close to."
"Then one day I turned around and God was there. He didn't come to me when
I pleaded with Him. Apparently He does things in His own way and at His own
hour. The important thing is that you were right. He found me even after I
stopped looking for Him."
"Tommy," I added, "Could I ask you a favor? Would you come to my Theology
of Faith course and tell my students what you told me?"
Though we scheduled a date, he never made it. Of course, his life was not
really ended by his death--only changed. He made the great step from faith
into vision. He found a life far more beautiful than the eye of humanity
has ever seen or the mind ever imagined. Before he died, we talked one last
time. "I'm not going to make it to your class," he said.
"I know, Tommy."
"Will you tell them for me? Will you...tell the whole world for me?"
"I will, Tommy. I'll tell them."
Author Unknown
Read and meditate on these scriptures:
James 4:13-15 "Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to such
and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit;
whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life?
It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.
Instead you ought to say, If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that."
1 John 4:7-11 "Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and
every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not
knoweth not God; for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God
toward us, because that God sent His only begotten Son into the world,
that we might live through Him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but
that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another."
1 John 4:19-21 "We love Him, because He first loved us. If a man say, I
love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his
brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And
this commandment have we from Him, That he who loveth God love his brother also."
All scriptures can be found in the King James Version Bible.
Today's Selected Poem: 25 SECRETS OF ENDLESS LOVE
Click here to read --- http://www.Godswork.org/enpoem176.htm
Today's Selected Testimony: THE WARRIOR
Click here to read --- http://www.Godswork.org/testimony4.htm
In Christ's Service,
Dwayne Savaya
Gods Work Ministry |
