Last Thursday I participated in a memorial service for a respected businessman who died suddenly of a heart attack at age 63. One day he seemed perfectly fine, the next he was, “…absent from the body and present with the Lord.” Naturally his family and friends were shocked and grief-stricken. Everyone was asking, “How can this be? I just talked to him yesterday and he was fine.”
No matter how many times we are reminded of how brief and fragile life is, we are still shocked and frightened when death unexpectedly strikes someone close to us. David once lamented, “There is but a step between me and death” (1 Samuel 20:3). James 4:14 reminds us, “Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.”
I concluded the Memorial service on Thursday with an old story I’ve used dozens of times at funerals. Maybe it will serve to keep your spiritual accounts current, since none of us knows what a day will bring forth.
An old, experienced fisherman was sitting on the bank of the Ohio River years ago hoping for some action on the end of his line. A young boy he’d never seen came strolling up and attempted to strike up a conversation. Then a few minutes later, this nine or ten-year old lad began shouting and waving his arms frantically at a tugboat that was chugging up the river.
The Old fisherman smiled condescendingly at the naïve boy. “Son, you are wasting your breath trying to get the attention of that boat. That captain has important business. He’s not stopping here for you.”
But the young man ignored the stranger’s counsel and kept waving and hollering. Oddly the powerful tugboat came closer and closer until finally it stopped and the lad waded out into the water and jumped on board. As the boat steamed away, the boy called to the surprised fisherman, “Mister, my father is the captain of this boat and he’s just taking me to our home on the other side of the river.”
The ship of death makes some unexpected stops along the river of life. And death is serious business. The Bible says, “It is appointed unto every man once to die and then the judgment.” So when the ship of death stops for you, make sure the Heavenly Father is the captain of your life and He’ll just be taking you to your permanent home on the other side of the river.
