2:50, #354: Death Stuff

There's a great line in the movie, "Shawshank Redemption" that says, "Get busy living or get busy dying." It essentially draws the difference in one sentence between two world-life views of despair/pessimism and hope/optimism. The movie comes down on the side of the Carpe Diem Crowd..."seize the day" to "make your own destiny" but doesn't take into account the truth of the Gospel. No thought of the afterlife is given at all...typical Hollywood these days.

My reading today in Spurgeon's Beside Still Waters starts out, "Death is the end of dying." He goes on to encourage Christians to realize that when we "step through death's curtain" as I said a couple of posts ago, we're HOME, PERFECTED, IN THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD!! No more of the world's bull chip cookies and soured milk! (OK...so that's my dynamic equivalent translation of Charlie's point...if you want accuracy, buy the book and read it yourself on page 222.)

Right now I'm listening to the version of "Amazing Grace" on the "Maverick" album...an upbeat, absolute GREAT version of my favorite hymn that's sung by The Maverick Choir, a collection of 25 Country Western All-Stars, James Garner, & Mel Gibson...THANKS, John Newton!! I told Archangel the other day that I wanted this played at my funeral REALLY LOUD!! (The classic version with drums and bagpipes would only make me cry as I was looking down on y'all and the Lord would have to wipe away the tears as He promised in Revelation 7:17, but, hey, what's the down side to that?!!)

Actually, when I kick off, kick the bucket, shuffle off this mortal coil, step through the curtain, or pass away, if some I.T. Whiz could grab the whole list of my New Mellow songs on my office computer and play them throughout whatever service is performed, we could have a good old time celebrating the fact that I had got busy REALLY living by dying! (Yeah, like it says at the end of "Second Hand Lions," those two men in great-grandfathers' stories REALLY LIVED!)

Well, the Lord hasn't sent me a memo to "cross over the River and rest under the shade of the trees" like He did Old Tom Fool For Christ (Stonewall) Jackson, so I'd best be getting about the rest of the day.
Y'all come back now, y'hear?!!