It is really the night before Tuesday, but I had a sobering experience while sitting watching Monday Night Football. I felt compelled to write. It’s not like the game mattered much to begin with. I mean the Miami Dolphins versus New England Patriots doesn’t rank up there with the highlights of the football season, much less to a West Coast aficionado (St. Louis—is that West? In the NFL, it is!).
The moment of enlightenment came early in the fourth quarter (or late in the third quarter; I don’t recall anymore) of a game New England was winning handily. I had already lost interest in the game some time earlier, yet I was still glued to the computer screen like some dazed zombie! I was so bored I wandered to the refrigerator and grabbed something to eat. I wasn’t even hungry! My mind was drifting away from the game when I got a call from my son, Ruben, asking for prayer for one of the residents in a family home his wife administers for developmentally delayed adults. One of the consumers (the appropriate term used by those in the system), had had a serious reoccurrence of a very aggressive form of cancer. She does not even know she is dying. She is just living her life oblivious to the fact that the time clock of her life is apparently rapidly winding down.
I asked Ruben if she knew. He said, “No, the family has chosen not to tell her.” How sad. And yet I understand why they would not want to tell her. After all she is happy as a lark enjoying the time with her friends and living in a safe and nurturing environment. She seems fine. I just saw her a week ago and she gave me a “high five.” I have worked with the developmentally disadvantaged for over twenty years. They die too. My son has also been involved with these special people for all those years. He confessed that he needed prayer too. “I still don’t understand why these things happen to these innocent people,” he muttered. He followed that up with what I already know is true. “I have a sensitive side, and so does Janelle (his wife), when it comes to these things.”
At that very moment I was jolted into reality. I was left wondering, who was more clueless? The young mentally challenged young lady who does not know that her time is just around the corner, or me, who knows that there are scores of more important things to do with my limited time (time is relative, you know), but choose to remain glued to the TV screen watching meaningless things? For a moment it became clear to me that at that very moment and perhaps more often than not, I was the more clueless one.
I will pray for my special friend. She is dying of cancer. I will pray for God to give her the strength she will need to go through what awaits her. I will pray for Ruben and Janelle. I will pray for myself-- that God will teach me to better spend His gift of time to me. I could read more. I always need to pray more. I might even write some more. I would benefit from more time for reflection. I need to make myself more accessible to the One who wants so much to reveal Himself to his children—of which I am one of the least of them, but one of them nonetheless.
I am scheduled to give the devotional thought to the entire contingent of Seventh-day Adventist pastors from all over the State of Arizona. I was kind of nervous and reflective about such a responsibility earlier today. I was planning on coming home and reflecting on some thoughts God had put on my mind-- that is, until my thoughts were sequestered by the game. There is nothing wrong with football, mind you; any more than there is anything wrong with volleyball or ping pong. But I fear that for now, it served to distract me from what I should have been focused on tonight.
Ironically, the title of the devotional thought I had begun to prepare for tomorrow is “From Disgrace to a State of Grace.” I am shamed and encouraged at the same time.
I have to go now. I do have some studying yet to do. The game may be over for some; for others time is running out; others just don’t know, but I want to be in the fight when the time is called and the contest is ended.
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