Life is tough, and then you die.
In April of 1982 Ruth and I were living near Land's End in Southern England. It was our first mission trip. I was asked to build a classroom building for a Bible school. This is the trip that set the pattern for the rest of our lives because we had a prophetic experience that seemed to solidify that pattern.
It was a rainy Sunday afternoon and I had had my Sunday afternoon nap. We decided to take a walk in the rain. We gathered up our umbrellas and walked down the street about a half-mile. We came upon an old church that looked like it had been there several hundred years, one of those old churches that you might see in a picture with the stone walls and slate roof.
We decided to follow the walkway and explore the church grounds. The walkway led around to the back opened up to a cemetery. Cemeteries can be interesting but really old ones can be really interesting. We started to walk the paths weaving through the tombstones and reading the dates and epitaphs on the old stones.
The cemetery was not well kept, I suppose after six or seven hundred years people lose interest in respecting tombstones and those lying beneath them when they are older than most countries on the planet.
As we studied the inscriptions carved into the stones we noticed something. It seemed that after about 300 years the elements have taken their toll on the tombstones and they remain just a plain piece of granite, no words, no dates, nada, just a piece of cold stone.
As I stood before one of these nameless pieces of stone my mind drifted back about 300 years to the person who was to be remembered by this stone.
There is absolutely no record of this person's life, the only evidence that this person ever lived on the planet was etched on this stone and now after centuries the elements have erased that.
Here lies the remains of a person who went through life struggling like the rest of us, working to make ends meet so he or she could survive in this harsh life and now no one knows who they were and what they accomplished while they lived here.
Here comes the sobering thought. If this person didn't accomplish anything that had eternal consequences, his life was lived in vain. The only thing that he took with him as a result of his life was his name and dates of birth and death, which were etched on his tombstone and now even that is gone.
As I look up and down the street that I live on I see the majority of the people live only for themselves. Their priorities are to pamper their flesh and live a comfortable life with their families. They have lots of things to relieve the pain and stress of life, but what happens once they leave the planet and their bones rest beneath a stone with letters and numerals carved into it? Will it have been worth it all?
That Sunday afternoon in the old cemetery caught my attention, I don't want to go through life, stare death in the face and think back over my life and come to the cold, stark realization that it was all in vain. I want to take more than an epitaph with me.
In April of 1982 Ruth and I were living near Land's End in Southern England. It was our first mission trip. I was asked to build a classroom building for a Bible school. This is the trip that set the pattern for the rest of our lives because we had a prophetic experience that seemed to solidify that pattern.
It was a rainy Sunday afternoon and I had had my Sunday afternoon nap. We decided to take a walk in the rain. We gathered up our umbrellas and walked down the street about a half-mile. We came upon an old church that looked like it had been there several hundred years, one of those old churches that you might see in a picture with the stone walls and slate roof.
We decided to follow the walkway and explore the church grounds. The walkway led around to the back opened up to a cemetery. Cemeteries can be interesting but really old ones can be really interesting. We started to walk the paths weaving through the tombstones and reading the dates and epitaphs on the old stones.
The cemetery was not well kept, I suppose after six or seven hundred years people lose interest in respecting tombstones and those lying beneath them when they are older than most countries on the planet.
As we studied the inscriptions carved into the stones we noticed something. It seemed that after about 300 years the elements have taken their toll on the tombstones and they remain just a plain piece of granite, no words, no dates, nada, just a piece of cold stone.
As I stood before one of these nameless pieces of stone my mind drifted back about 300 years to the person who was to be remembered by this stone.
There is absolutely no record of this person's life, the only evidence that this person ever lived on the planet was etched on this stone and now after centuries the elements have erased that.
Here lies the remains of a person who went through life struggling like the rest of us, working to make ends meet so he or she could survive in this harsh life and now no one knows who they were and what they accomplished while they lived here.
Here comes the sobering thought. If this person didn't accomplish anything that had eternal consequences, his life was lived in vain. The only thing that he took with him as a result of his life was his name and dates of birth and death, which were etched on his tombstone and now even that is gone.
As I look up and down the street that I live on I see the majority of the people live only for themselves. Their priorities are to pamper their flesh and live a comfortable life with their families. They have lots of things to relieve the pain and stress of life, but what happens once they leave the planet and their bones rest beneath a stone with letters and numerals carved into it? Will it have been worth it all?
That Sunday afternoon in the old cemetery caught my attention, I don't want to go through life, stare death in the face and think back over my life and come to the cold, stark realization that it was all in vain. I want to take more than an epitaph with me.
posted by Jim Burton at 7:45 AM
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