Choosing Your Replacement
Acts 1:15-17, 21-26
Suppose you are suddenly taken out of the picture… who would you want to replace you? Who would you choose to take your job, love your spouse, raise your children, finish your book, song, composition, feed the dog. What kind of characteristics should they have? Which personality style would be best? Would you choose a man or a woman to replace you? How would you know that you got the right one?
Today I am thinking about young men and women who have gone off to war leaving behind loved ones and normal lives. On the plane, as they are traveling to hostile environments, they start thinking about what would happen if they don’t return. What an awesome thought process. Ultimately they conclude that there is nothing more to do than to trust God to be with, help, and finish the tasks they left behind.
Unfortunately for many families that is exactly what happened… the ultimate sacrifice was made and life tasks where left undone, in God’s hands, and someone else had to step in. The thought of it just moves me in the deepest way.
Jesus disciples were left with a void and they had to choose one to fill it. I find their story amusing and insightful. First, they prayed. Next they decided on candidates. Finally they practiced what can only be called “divine gambling” … they threw dice… no kidding… check it out. To be honest there is a little more to it than I can write about here, but the point is the same.
I like that they threw dice. It shows the humanness and uncertainty of their process. It is sort of like saying, “We are not quite sure how to do this, HELP! GOD!” I like the dependency on God.
Isn’t that exactly what those brave young men and women did when they went off to war? Weren’t their actions saying much the same thing, “God… I’m not sure what to do about my family, my unfinished business… I’m depending on you!”
While we honor and remember those who never finished their life tasks this Memorial Day weekend… let us remember that we do indeed have choices that can and must be acted upon. Let us be disciplined in completing the tasks of love and faithfulness in our life time, even today. Let us work together with God in the mission to bring more love and grace to our world. Let us be the person that we would choose to replace us so that the world will never again have to send young people off to war, to wonder who would replace them. We can, we should and we ought to work diligently and with the same discipline and purpose as those valiant ones who sacrificed it all for our freedom.
Honor and remember them by living faithful lives changing the world through the love of Christ.
Love and Peace- Bryan Martin
Suppose you are suddenly taken out of the picture… who would you want to replace you? Who would you choose to take your job, love your spouse, raise your children, finish your book, song, composition, feed the dog. What kind of characteristics should they have? Which personality style would be best? Would you choose a man or a woman to replace you? How would you know that you got the right one?
Today I am thinking about young men and women who have gone off to war leaving behind loved ones and normal lives. On the plane, as they are traveling to hostile environments, they start thinking about what would happen if they don’t return. What an awesome thought process. Ultimately they conclude that there is nothing more to do than to trust God to be with, help, and finish the tasks they left behind.
Unfortunately for many families that is exactly what happened… the ultimate sacrifice was made and life tasks where left undone, in God’s hands, and someone else had to step in. The thought of it just moves me in the deepest way.
Jesus disciples were left with a void and they had to choose one to fill it. I find their story amusing and insightful. First, they prayed. Next they decided on candidates. Finally they practiced what can only be called “divine gambling” … they threw dice… no kidding… check it out. To be honest there is a little more to it than I can write about here, but the point is the same.
I like that they threw dice. It shows the humanness and uncertainty of their process. It is sort of like saying, “We are not quite sure how to do this, HELP! GOD!” I like the dependency on God.
Isn’t that exactly what those brave young men and women did when they went off to war? Weren’t their actions saying much the same thing, “God… I’m not sure what to do about my family, my unfinished business… I’m depending on you!”
While we honor and remember those who never finished their life tasks this Memorial Day weekend… let us remember that we do indeed have choices that can and must be acted upon. Let us be disciplined in completing the tasks of love and faithfulness in our life time, even today. Let us work together with God in the mission to bring more love and grace to our world. Let us be the person that we would choose to replace us so that the world will never again have to send young people off to war, to wonder who would replace them. We can, we should and we ought to work diligently and with the same discipline and purpose as those valiant ones who sacrificed it all for our freedom.
Honor and remember them by living faithful lives changing the world through the love of Christ.
Love and Peace- Bryan Martin
