Perspective
Last Sunday I received an email from the CEO of our company letting me know that one of my co-workers had passed away from a 3 year battle with cancer. He was 46 years old, has 3 boys and a wonderful wife. Just two years ago, Trisha and I were playing volleyball with he and his wife in Grand Cayman, on a company trip. He thought he had beaten the disease at that point.
His visitation is today and his funeral is tomorrow. He was a follower of Christ, an elder at a church he helped start 10 years ago, and a wonderful husband and father. He was the most accomplised sales person in our company world-wide over the last 21 years. A wonderful man. I know he is healed and whole and basking in the glory of heaven right now.
Since Sunday, and since his death, my perspective has changed some. He wasn’t all that much older than me. Was in fantastic shape and had no reason to think he would die from cancer. I started to think about the length of my own life…How many days do I have left with my boys? How many mornings do I have to wake up next to my beautiful wife? How many more days do I have to make an eternal difference with the one life God has given me?
Every day, in the financial services industry I am in we are worried about the enconomy and the stock market and the recession…and I guess to some degree those things are important. But not as important as building a legacy with my marriage. Not as important as cuddling with my kids on a cold November morning. Not as important as living my life with an urgency to help people who are far from God know how much He loves them. The things of this world cause us to lose perspective on what truly matters. I love what Francis Chan says in his book “Crazy Love” “Our greatest fear as individuals and as a church should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter.” The thing I admire about my friend and co-worker Matt is that while he had tremendous success in the things that matter in this world, his greatest success was building a legacy of faith and love that will last for all of eternity.
As I was getting dressed this morning in a suit to go to his visitation, I prayed to God that when people are getting dressed for my funeral, they will think about the eternal difference my life has made. And I then asked God to help me live with the daily perspective to make the previous request possible.
