2.5.2010
Acts 12:19 19 And after Herod searched for him and did not find him, he examined the sentries and ordered that they should be put to death. Then he went down from Judea to Caesarea and spent time there. ESV
I remember the story of the gangland shooting referred to as the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. On February 14th, 1929 members of Al Capone’s gang in Chicago lined up seven members of Bugs Moran’s gang along a back wall of a backstreet garage in Chicago’s north side and gunned them down. One of the people killed was a man named John May, a case of wrong place wrong time. Although May had a criminal record, he was not a member of the Moran gang, and was ironically trying to support his wife and 7 kids legitimately as an auto mechanic for the gang.
When I read Acts 12, I always feel sort of sorry for the soldiers that Herod had executed because they were implicated in Peter’s escape from prison. They had no idea how Peter got loose and could not give the tetrarch a suitable excuse; so they all died – wrong place wrong time.
Each of us has the same amount of time in a day, in a week, in a month, in a year as we live out our days. The question is: where will we be on the day we die – the right place or the wrong place? Whose side will we be on, what place will we find ourselves? Will it be right time right place, or something else?
I will attempt, strive, purpose, intend, plan, strategize, determine, to be in the presence of God everyday. I will work an honest job, have meaningful relationships, and worship often at the Throne of Grace. That’s all I know to do. And I will trust in God – in Whose sight is the preciousness of the death of His saints (Psalm 116.15) – that I will be right where I’m supposed to be when that day, that hour, that moment, comes for me.
Father in Heaven,
You are my God and I entrust to You my living and even the moment of my death – right place right time – in Christ’s Name, amen.
1 comment:
Dying gloriously (like a Klingon must die in battle, not of disease or catastrophe) can be a phrase for our Christian passing, but with different meaning than Worf would mean. Dying gloriously would mean that in all steps toward and in the midst of dying, all evidence points to you not fearing its timing nor its delivery system. Instead, you bring glory to God by handling it in a way that demonstrates to a watching world that you are a trusting child being scooped up by his Good Father.
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