Departing Directives
I was barely 16 years old when my father who was standing beside me in our basement den/office collapsed! Instinctively I grabbed him and eased his large frame to the floor. I held up his upper body as best I could and screamed for my mother who was puttering about upstairs in the kitchen. She came running and on entering the scene screamed “Oh Don!” Dad gasped… mom, frozen at the doorway, screamed again through sputtering tears, “Don!!”
“Call the doctor mom!” I shouted. It was the best I could think of, dad still gasping in my arms, mom still frozen in the doorway. She did. It was a well memorized number in our household in 1967. The receptionist knew us well and with calmer mind summoned an ambulance to our home.
By the time it had arrived dad had managed with our help to limp his way up the stairs and outside. Mom and I supported him as he leaned against our front porch by the driveway — insane actions clear to us only now in retrospect.
It had been dad’s third heart attack. I remember visiting him during the two or three days he continued to survive in hospital. On my last visit he called me close and betwixt laboured breaths said, “Son, look after your mother.”
“Sure dad, yes,” I nodded.
Later at home that day the phone rang. It was the hospital. I gave it to mom. “Yes,” she said.. “yes… yes…” and then she was crying.
Up at the nurses station the monitor that once had dad’s name taped beneath it now had no name at all and it’s screen was dark. The last thing my dad had said to me was “Son, look after your mother,” and from that day forward until her own eventual passing I sought to do exactly that. I did not always succeed, but it was always my ambition.
Why am I telling you all this and what does it have to do with the testimonies we heard last Sunday? If you are a believer in Jesus Christ you are exactly in the same position that I was in that my father’s bedside so many years ago. You see our Lord also gave His children a command… two in fact just prior to his leaving this Earth.
In our relations to one another as believers in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ He charges this,
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:34-35).
And in our relations to the lost souls of this world He mandates this,
“Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matt. 28:19-20).
Telling your testimony, telling your own story, your own undeniable experience and relationship with Jesus is one of the simplest and most accessible ways you can do this… in fact, you are the only one who can do this.
More tomorrow…
To hear this past Sunday’s message, go to the Facebook page of Lincoln Baptist Church, or link to the livestream from the church website.
thebrokenrunner 