Another Birthday!

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. (Philippians 1:21-23 ESV).

Yep, I woke up to another birthday! The crazy thing is that as each year passes I am a little more surprised that I made it for another one. And, it seems that others are noticing my age more. There was a stretch there for a bit that I could fool some folks into thinking that I was a decade younger than I really was. Those days are certainly gone. Last weekend I had the privilege to speak at a gathering of former students and parents of students of Texas A&M. It was the annual fundraising dinner for the Parker County A&M Mom’s Club. There was a large number of people in attendance and I thought surely there will be some “old Aggies” there. Mary and I are class of ’71. Surely there were some folks there who graduated before we did. Nope! We were the oldest graduates there! How did that happen? The math is easy to understand. The problem really is rooted in the actual life events. So, today I have decided to simply go with the flow. I’m 69 (does that sound better than saying I was born in 1949?). Regardless, math is math. What I can do to make myself feel better is to come to the truth in our reading today. The Apostle Paul makes the grand declaration while he is in prison waiting certain execution. He didn’t know what would happen next. Yet he says, “I will continue to rejoice.” Perhaps you read these verses and think that the phrase “my deliverance” means that he expected to be released. But that’s not what he means. He’s not thinking about getting out of jail, but about God vindicating him, whether in chains or as a free man. The Living Bible offers this helpful paraphrase: “This is all going to turn out for my good.” He also says that he is depending on two things: the prayers of his friends; and, the work of the Holy Spirit on his behalf. The key to his amazing attitude was his absence of fear about dying. He just wasn’t afraid to die. So many of us worry about the future and about what might happen to us in some accident or through cancer or some other dreaded disease. Of all the fears that grip the heart of modern man, none is greater than the fear of death. Yet Paul has been completely delivered from inner dread over what might happen tomorrow. He has come to the place where he can say, “The only thing that matters is that Christ be magnified in my life. And it doesn’t matter whether I live or die as long as Christ is magnified.” That’s my focus, especially today! Join me and watch your life just get better as we get a little closer to heaven.