The past week and a half has been a hard time for our church.  In the past 10 or so days we have had four people connected with our church go home to be with God.  This week among the funerals and all the conversations with families and acquaintances I have obviously thought a lot about my life, about the lives these people led, and how it all fits into what I do day in and day out.  Here are a few verses that have entered my thoughts:

James 4:13-17 (NIV) 13 Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.”14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”16 As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil. 17 Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.

Yesterday at a funeral, as I listened to people describe the life that had been lived and all the lives that had been changed and enriched and brought closer to God through this woman I was in awe.  I will do the same thing on Friday at another funeral, also for a man that I know changed and affected many people for God’s kingdom as well.  Both of these people worked outside of the church in “secular” careers but at the same time had made major impacts for thekingdomofGod.  They both knew the good they had been put on this earth to do and they did it.

Colossians 1:10-14 (NIV) 10 And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God,11 being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light.13 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Both of these people were truly saints in the kingdom of light.  Their funerals are a celebration of a life well lived and a homecoming party as they are with God in heaven.  I hope that my funeral will be exactly that as well.

As I think about my life and how I am living it day in and day out, I am challenged to spend more time on the most important things and less time on meaningless things.  As you read these passages what are you challenged with?