those who come after

In Walk with Jesus, by Henri Nouwen, he writes:

“We all must die. And we all will die alone. No one can make that final journey with us. We have to let go of what is most our own and trust that we did not live in vain. Somehow, dying is the greatest of all human moments because it is the moment in which we are asked to give everything. The way we die has not only much to do with the way we have lived, but also with the way that those who come after us will live.”

I have thought a lot, in this past year, how important our living is to our dying. I’ve thought a lot about how our Kathy would have never, in a million years, been able to see how her choices, her actions, and her faithfulness affected so many around her.

In Hebrews 11, Paul retells the stories of the lives of the people, of the old testament, who were faithful to him. He makes it clear that none of these people ever realized, in their lifetimes, all that God had promised to them. He also makes it clear that it is the combination of their lives and the lives of all of God’s people that will ultimately show the whole work of God. As he writes in verse 40: “…their faith and our faith (will) come together to make one completed whole, their lives of faith not complete apart from ours.”

Wow! So, it’s not my perfection but my faithfulness that God will use, and he will use it for generations to come…all the way to eternity.

As Michael W. Smith sings, “may all who come behind us find us faithful,”
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