“David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid with his fathers…” (Acts 13:36).
 
Some years ago our boys and I spent a week on an abandoned backcountry ranch on the Salmon River. One day, exploring the old homestead, I came across an ancient grave with a weathered, wooden marker. The marker bore an inscription enshrining the name of a man named James Moore, an early resident of the ranch no doubt, now "laid with his fathers" and long forgotten, lost to the next generation.
 
Someone—I think it was Tolstoy—said the best of us are remembered for a hundred years or so. The rest of us are soon forgotten. What are our markers, I thought, but monuments to the forgetfulness of the living. Memories of us, like our memorials, fade away.

But no matter. May we, like David, serve the purposes of God in our generation—and leave the remembering to Him!

DHR

What's it all about, Alfie?

“...Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge“ (Colossians 2:3b).

My Apple iPad contains a voice recognition application named Siri, Ask Siri any question and she offers an answer. “Siri ... is a life changer,” one reviewer wrote, “and this is only the beginning.”

One day, pursuing wisdom, I asked Siri, “What is the meaning of life?” She answered, “42.”

“42” is an old philosophical joke, based on Douglas Adams’ book, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, in which he concludes, "The answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything is 42,” a claim that has become more famous than the novel itself. Thoughtful people have worried themselves into a frenzy trying to ascribe significance to the number and its occurrences, but Adams himself claims the number has no meaning at all.

And that is the irony in the joke: “What is the meaning of life?” is a question about which there are no meaningful answers.

Yet my heart cries out for answers: Who am i? What is my purpose here on earth? And what is my ultimate destiny? These are the questions that bewilder me.

Over the years I’ve caught glimpses of abstract truth, but these days I’m looking beyond abstraction to something more: the ideal made real—Jesus who knows, thinks, feels, says and does the truth. That’s what Jesus meant when he said “I myself am…the truth!”^[1] (Cf., John 14:6).

So, I must sit at his feet and give him my heart’s attention and devotion. He has the answers to life’s nagging questions. Through him I know who I am (God’s beloved child); what I am to do (my Father’s perfect and perfecting will); and where I am going (to my Father’s house, my last and everlasting home).

I have seen Truth and I am satisfied. Jesus, not 42 (and not the Hokey Pokey), is what it's all about.

DHR

---

^[1] Jesus made the person pronoun “I” strongly emphatic. When Phillip said, “How can we know ultimate reality?” Jesus said, in effect, “You’re looking at it." Likewise consider Pilate’s cynical question, “What is truth?” when it was standing in front of him.

Young at Heart

“Deep inside this wrecked and ravaged hull there sails a young man still.”

—Fredrick Buechner in Godric

I own a 1995 GMC truck. It’s worn-out, dented, battered and scratched and has more miles on it than its odometer has numbers. Some parts of it don’t work well; some non-essential parts don’t work at all, but I’m fond of it. I’ve owned it for 17 years or more. It’s mine.

It’s only mine, however. It isn’t me, (or I, as my grade school grammar teacher Miss Moody would insist). I never confuse myself with my truck.

So it is with my body. It’s worn-out, dented, battered and scratched. Some parts of it don’t work well and some non-essential parts don’t work at all. I’m rather fond of it, however. I’ve owned it for 80 years or more. It’s mine.

But my body isn’t me. I have a body and, thank God, I shall soon have one better, but I am not now my body nor shall I ever be; I am my soul, the immaterial, inextinguishable, thinking, reasoning, adventure–­seeking, fun–loving “me” that has been joined to God’s family forever, begotten through Jesus Christ my Lord. I am an immortal child of God; I will never grow old and I will never die.

That’s why, when I look in the mirror and gape at this bundle of dry, withered sticks that I call my body, I can rightly say, "That isn’t me!” My true self is hale and hearty and will never grow old.

If anyone insists otherwise—for I do look old and decrepit—I shall answer, “Stuff and nonsense!” for, as George MacDonald argues, “Of all children, how can the children of God be old?"

DHR