Soon and very soon....

Soon and very soon, we are going to see the King...
Soon and very soon, we are going to see the King...
Soon and very soon, we are going to see the King...
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, we're going to see the King...

Late yesterday evening, a close friend and colleague called, asking to put our Crisis Intervention Team on standby for paramedics, law officers, and rescue personnel who had worked a very serious case involving a young boy in a 4-wheeler accident. The lad didn't survive, as you might expect. Anytime people in my profession deal with kids, it is very difficult to say the least. And as hard as we try not to, we often "project" our own kids into the mental imagery we have of the event....and the demons make us ask ourselves "what if it was my own..." Our team helps those professionals in dealing with the emotions and stress, so that they can continue the important work they've been called to do.

But this case took a turn later in the evening. I found out the child was the youngest son of a friend of mine that I grew up in the same town with. She's the oldest of four sisters, and I'd graduated with the middle sister. A really great, close family.

In so many ways in life, our faith is tested...or we think it is being tested. Certainly our system of beliefs, fairness, justice, and sometimes faith is pushed. We wonder why, and far too often there aren't patent answers. But one thing I have learned...we're not truly being TESTED. We're being grown and made stronger in our tribulations. I've written before that "we" as humans probably put too much into what is really a simple faith. The span of eternity is not comprehensible to us as finite creatures that live on the movement of time. In truth, eternity is NOT time, as it neither began, nor shall it end.

This morning as I awoke with my own son, and took joy in the pleasure he gives me as both my son and my friend, I inadvertently "projected" him into a lot of the traumas I have participated in over my career in public safety. It didn't take me long to pull back to reality, and I'm fine. No problems. As the morning progressed, I checked in with some friends of this family that has been so horribly afflicted this weekend. They related news, that the contemplation of which is even still amazing to me.

Tyler, the young man who died Saturday, had become a Christian. He was walking in the life of salvation, with the promise that an eternity in Heaven with Christ would be his reward. He had taken that simple leap of faith....to say "yes, I believe." He had breathed those words just one day before his step into eternity.

No more dying there, we are going to see the King...
No more dying there, we are going to see the King...
No more dying there, we are going to see the King...
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, we are going to see the King!!!

Now a mother and a father, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents grieve. Tyler's story hadn't had a chance to even be told by the pastor of that vacation Bible school yet. He met the family at home after they made that long journey from the hospital. Wow! Both a heavy heart, and a cause for celebration in that one sentence he had to share with them.

When I went into my own church today, our pianist and bass guitarist were practicing the choir's special. It was a very bluesy version of "Soon and Very Soon." Like a slap in the face, the words came. What does Tyler have in his salvation that I don't have in almost 30 years of being a Christian???? What does he know, what does he have? To me, the answer was simple...absolutely NOTHING. Nothing short of Heaven itself right now.

The sermon was on patience and longsuffering. How, though, can a mother who has just lost her youngest son be PATIENT with God? Remember, we're humans, we "put on" a lot to our faith that maybe shouldn't be there. God's not surprised with anything. He gave Tyler EVERYTHING that he offers "mature" Christians. While we put a lot of stock into a whole lot of activity, study, ministry, outreach, fellowship....with hopes of "laying up treasures in Heaven", Tyler got a full return on a one-day investment in BELIEF.

No more crying there, we are going to see the King...
No more crying there, we are going to see the King...
No more crying there, we are going to see the King...
HALLELUJAH, HALLELUJAH, WE ARE GOING TO SEE THE KING!!!!

Faith is simple. We're called to believe. I hope you believe like Tyler did.