Lived Out Loud

Just a matter of hours ago, I read a eulogy of a man on a friend's Facebook page. She wrote of his faith and of his drive to draw people toward Christ. At first read, it sounded like he was some sort of cancer patient. One of those people that just knows his time is short. I've known a few people like that, and assumed he was one of them.

I was wrong.

This young man, not even 24 years old, had plans for this past weekend. I have found and read through eulogy upon eulogy about him, trying to piece together who he was and his last moments here. I visited his Facebook, which is open to the public and saw a post from Friday afternoon about how he was going out with friends to a triathalon and was inviting others to come. I read a note from a friend who was with him Friday, just hours before his life changed forever. I just received an e-mail from one of his close friends, who I happen to know from college (it's a small world after all). This is what it said:

I just graduated from Grace College this past Saturday (the 8th) and that was the last time I saw {him}, he drove from Grand Rapids to my graduation in Indiana, then right back to MI for his brothers graduation from Hillsdale. My open house was Sunday afternoon at the parsonage that belongs to my home church in MI, I used to live there, but now the youth pastor does, and {he} had been renting a room in the house. He had posted on the wall for the event (for my open house) "I probably won't show up, but I'll be there".... a joke on the fact that he lived there, but boy oh boy did that turn out to be true or what...

He had plans. Plans that did not involve losing his life. Still, the faith he lived his life with was vibrant. It reflected a constant awareness of the weight of eternity.

On Friday night, hours after his last post on Facebook, his last Frisbee match with friends, this young man was involved in a serious bicycling accident that caused severe head trauma. On Monday evening, he met his Saviour face to face, and though I have never met the young man, it is clear to me that he received a hearty, "Well done, my child, enter into the glory of the Lord."

We just don't know. If we knew today would be our last, what would we do? Would we live our faith out loud? Many do, and that's why I thought, at first glance, that this man had resigned himself to death. That wasn't the case. This man had resigned himself to Christ, and lived every day as if that day he would have to answer to his Saviour.

Can we say the same?