"As It Is............."

An old friend was waiting for me at church yesterday. Not having my phone number, he had come to the one place he knew I’d be on a Sunday evening and caught me outside the front entrance just before worship started. A co-worker of ours from the railroad had passed away, another good buddy not seen by me but once since my retirement a decade ago, a fellow who used to chastise me for putting too much salt on my lunch and then would grin when I’d point to the two packs of cigarettes that he consumed each day. We were like that with each other from the beginning. His childhood poverty endured had him always counting pennies, everything in his life geared toward making a profit, continually shifting his annually allotted sick days into his 401K so as to gain one hundred percent of their worth at some future date. I, on the other hand, would always sell back to the company ten or fifteen of mine, receiving but half their value to finance a vacation to Florida. He was six years younger than me, a great guy, and got to enjoy very little of what he had labored so long to save. If the news of his death saddened me, however, further conversation with the man who had sought me out with the report would give me reason to rejoice. This individual, about my age, while having taken never neglected his family, for as long as I had known him had struggled with an addiction to gambling. To learn now that awhile back he not only managed to break such hold on his identity, but that he also found deeper relationship with Christ in finding that victory, was like serving me up manna from heaven! At this stage of the journey, more and more it is but to be expected that family, comrades, and acquaintances, who share my generational time span to some degree on either side of me, are looking at the odds increasing that any of us might well be the next one to leave. I face that fact with no fear. What concerns me is the world around this old man: the chaos, the lack of morality, the loss of sense, and the Gospel message being preached in the midst of it all. The battle, however, is not mine to fight, other than through a surrendering of myself unto Him. All things are in His hands…….