finally!

my friend Melissa has finally graced us with her literary presence. She and I have great conversations often, mostly a few lines at a time during the work day via e-mail. I thought it would be nice if she shared some of her thoughts on life here, and I finally talked her into it....


Acts 20:24 – “But my life is worth nothing unless I use it for doing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus – the work of telling others the Good News about God’s wonderful kindness and love.”

Since the Faithwalkers conference back in December, God has brought this verse across my path several times (“Ok, Lord…I can take a hint!”) The phrase “worth nothing” seems to jump off the page every time I read this verse. To think that for all of the struggles, trials, joys and pains – when it comes right down to it, if I don’t do the work God has planned for me, it’s worthless.
A few weeks prior to Faithwalkers, on December 10th, 2004, my 19-year-old cousin Emily was killed in a car accident. Emily was an amazing girl; beautiful, fun, talented and had a smile that I will never forget. The grief I felt over her death was paralyzing; “Lord, how could you take her from us? Especially before I got to tell her about you?”
I located Emily’s obituary through their local newspaper online. The obituary had a guest book where visitors could share their thoughts or memories. She had played soccer for most of her life, so many of the comments came from past coaches and teammates. Several people said things like “I’ll always remember what a talented soccer player Emily was.” My heart sank…“A talented soccer player?! That’s how you’re going to remember her? But she was so much more than that!”

“…But my life is worth nothing unless I use it for doing the work assigned me by the Lord Jesus….”

As I continued to think on this verse, it brought to mind a portion of a John Piper sermon I had recently heard called “Boast Only in the Cross”:
Three weeks ago we got word at our church that Ruby Eliason and Laura Edwards had both been killed in Cameroon. Ruby was over 80. Single all her life, she poured it out for one great thing: To make Jesus Christ known among the unreached, the poor, and the sick. Laura was a widow, a medical doctor, pushing 80 years old, and serving at Ruby's side in Cameroon. The brakes failed, the car went over the cliff, and they were both killed instantly. And I asked my people: was that a tragedy? Two lives, driven by one great vision, spent in unheralded service to the perishing poor for the glory of Jesus Christ—two decades after almost all their American counterparts have retired to throw their lives away on trifles in Florida or New Mexico. No. That is not a tragedy. That is a glory.
I tell you what a tragedy is. I'll read to you from Reader's Digest (Feb. 98, p. 98) what a tragedy is: "Bob and Penny... took early retirement from their jobs in the Northeast five years ago when he was 59 and she was 51. Now they live in Punta Gorda, Florida, where they cruise on their 30 foot trawler, play softball and collect shells." The American Dream: come to the end of your life - your one and only life - and let the last great work before you give an account to your Creator, be "I collected shells. See my shells." THAT is a tragedy. And people today are spending billions of dollars to persuade you to embrace that tragic dream. And I get forty minutes to plead with you: don't buy it.

The desire of my heart is that I (we) would live lives like Ruby and Laura’s – to be known and remembered as servants of Christ and lovers of the lost. That our lives would be celebrated when they are over as triumphs to “…the work of telling others the Good News about God’s wonderful kindness and love.” That we would not stand before our Savior with shells, or possessions, or titles, or any other worthless thing.