There Comes a Point

     My Bible study the past few weeks has been in Joshua. Yesterday was his farewell address. One of the questions was--What is the difference between hearing about the Lord and personally experiencing His good works? My answer--Second hand information never has the impact first hand experience does. This has been especially relevant to me as I have had opportunities in the past few months to comfort  grieving couples. The Lord has given me one outstanding experience, sending a stranger to encourage us as we took Tracy to rehab eight years ago. And He has given me many personal encouragements and guidance both before and after Tracy's death. As meaningful as those have been to me, they have little impact on others in grief. 

    For one thing, I cannot comfort them regarding heaven because they sometimes don't know their loved ones' spiritual state. However well-intentioned, false comfort is no comfort at all because only truth has the power to set us free. So I share the verses that have meant the most to me:  Ps. 139:16. Job 14:5 God chooses our time of death. Those verses remove the what ifs, if onlys, and guilt from our grief. Rom. 8:35-39 about not being separated from the love of God is wonderful, but those verses are comfort only for believers. So what is an encouragement for those who are not sure if their lost loved one belonged to God? John 6. 

    Through our experience on the road to rehab, Tracy lost his doubt that God saw him and I knew, at the very least, that God was reaching for him. I had no doubt whatsoever that God would hit what He was aiming for. But, for some reason, God feels the need to repeat what He is trying to teach me at least three times and that is where John chapter 6 came in. When we came home from that trip, there was a  note in the mail from my Dad. Dad is constantly getting freebees from charities hoping to guilt him into donating. Some of those guilt gifts are cards. They were seldom really useful cards, but he used them to cover things he was planning to mail anyway. I don't remember what was enclosed in the card, but the verse on it, probably unnoticed by Dad, was John 6:37 Everyone whom my Father gives me will come to me. I will never turn away anyone who comes to me. That means every person the Father chooses as a love gift to His Son will come to Christ. Not unconsciously or against their will, God does not work that way, but He has a way of bending our will so that we freely choose to believe in Jesus. After Tracy died, my prayer group gave me a heart shaped stone with Tracy's name on one side and John 6:37 on the other.

    Second reminder was verse 39, And this is the will of Him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. Jesus will never say, "Oops, I dropped one!" For my third reminder, part of the next day's sermon was--you guessed it--John 6. Specifically vs. 44-47 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up on the last day. It is written in the Prophets, 'they will all be taught by God.' Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from him comes to me. No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father. Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. I am putting some of this in bold type for emphasis, but it is hard to know where to stop. Those the Father draws--will come, those who come--have eternal life, and will be raised up.

    I understand the doubt, especially about those we led to the Lord ourselves, or who were saved at a young age. Tracy was only four when I led him to Christ. We doubt whether they understood, our own ability to explain, we see them struggle later in life, we wonder if what happened was just our own wishful thinking. Fruit is important, but I realized recently that there are no passages in the Bible where Lot's decisions showed any degree of righteousness, and yet 2 Pet 2:7 describes him as a righteous man. There are many parts of our loved ones' spiritual lives that we do not know about, just as they do not know everything about ours. If believing they are saved seems too good to be true, that's because all salvation is. I understand not wanting false assurance, and clearly not all of those we love will be in heaven, but there comes a point when doubting their salvation experience becomes doubting God. And I doubt we want to do that.