5:31 – What is in your Obituary?

#faithbites #faithjourney obituary

Intro

I’ve often wondered what my obituary will contain. Will it talk about the amount of money I have, the things I built, the degrees I have, the places I’ve been, or the stuff I’ve left to my kids? I don’t think I want my obituary to include any of that. I want it to talk about how I loved my family, served my community, was an imperfect person, loved God, and tried my best.

You may wonder why I started a #faithbites talking about an obituary. No, I’m not dying (well, actually we all are but I don’t think it’s my time to go home yet). I brought this up because I want to focus on the results first and then see what I need to do to get there. In education, we call it backward design or understanding by design. You focus on the end, then go back to get what you need to teach to get those outcomes.

If fame, fortune, and possession aren’t what I want people to talk about in my obituary to Eulogy, then why do we focus on that here? What if we focused on growing God’s kingdom, loving one another, and being kind first. Wouldn’t that make all the difference?

Questions

• When you are gone and buried, what do you want people to remember about you?
• Are you working towards those goals or towards what you think the world wants of you?

Scripture

• Exodus 20:1-4, 7-8, 12-17 – And God spoke all these words: ² “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. ³ “You shall have no other gods before^[a] me.⁴ “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. ⁷ “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name. ⁸ “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.  ¹² “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you. ¹³ “You shall not murder. ¹⁴ “You shall not commit adultery. ¹⁵ “You shall not steal. ¹⁶ “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor. ¹⁷ “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”
• Mark 12:30 – 31 – ³⁰ Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’^[a] 31 The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’^[b] There is no commandment greater than these.”

Reflection

You may be surprised at the verses selected for today. They don’t have anything to do with death or the afterlife. The 10 commandments and Jesus’s Commandment, tell us how to live. If we follow the commandments which boil down to love God and love our neighbor, our obituary will be what we want it to be. We don’t have to worry about being Barons of industry, changing the world with a discovery, being an elective official, or any of a hundred things that the world says we have to do to make a difference. Our difference is following God, loving each other, and living as he wants us to. if we focus on that, then those others things will come based on God’s plan, will, and his time.

As we close, remember to focus not on the stuff of life, but on how you want to be remembered. If you want to be remembered for your love of Jesus, live that way now. When you show love, you see love, and God is love.

Prayer

Father God, thank you for helping us to live a life that is pleasing to you. We often focus on winning at all costs or gathering stuff. You show us that that is wrong. Help us to focus on the end goal, eternal life with you, rather than on getting stuff here. We want to be remembered for how we loved you and loved each other, not for amassing stuff. This is a challenge in the world that we live in. Please grant us the strength to focus on the end goal and not on immediate satisfaction. We pray this in your name, Amen.