I just returned home from a celebration of life for Tom Gerdis, a thirty-three year relationship to me, a man who was eighty-four years old at his passing. Our families were fairly connected for about ten years as children grew up and got married. We were in Bible studies together.
The last twenty years our relationship was more of awareness of key events in each other’s lives with career changes and where and how we served God.
The celebration started with three songs of praise to the One True and Living God Who was and is faithful throughout his life and the life of every follower of Christ.
Testimony after testimony was given by friends, family members and fellow believers in Christ as to Tom’s faithful witness in his service to Christ. Some relationships started four years ago or less. Others were 20-30 year relationships. One was by one of his brothers. Everyone shared how Tom was a consistent witness to the love of God in how he lived his life in caring for everyone in his presence. Though Tom held no high position in life from a secular perspective, he deeply impacted those whom he lived with to be committed to serving the One True and Living God. In short, Tom reflected God well during his time on earth.
This celebration of life was a great reminder to me of how we are to live every day as a representative of God’s grace with no regard for receiving credit for what we do.
The mundane activities of life are where we best exemplify God’s presence in life as we humbly live without bringing attention to the things we do.
The pressing thought to me afterward is: there is no need to plan your funeral service when you live a life dedicated to serving God through the moment of death.
Therefore, we should be continually making new relationships and impacting new people. We should be continual learners and sharing what we are learning about God, life, and how to impact others for the glory of God.
And if we were to plan our celebration of life, we would miss the final chapter. We would be presenting a very biased perspective on how we lived our life. We would be excluding individuals who would benefit by their giving a testimony to their life being impacted.
We often are encouraged to consider the Legacy we will leave behind us upon our passing from this world. I suggest we should not be concerned about our legacy at all. We should let it be what it will be. Instead, we should be fully striving each day to live a holy life in service to God. After all, when we are fully living for the glory to God, our life really is not about us in any way.
