Singing the Same Song
If you’re looking for someone to get close to, find a person who’s read the same books as you. Probably interested in the same kind of things.
Singing the same song is different. It’s who you worship. And that’s more important.
Angie Bevilacqua worked for Radical Mentoring early on. She died a couple of weeks ago from breast cancer. As I drove to her funeral, I sang praise songs as I often do. But then I realized . . . when we start singing at the celebration service, Angie would be singing with us. In her own service. In the room but invisible, her to us and us to her. But simultaneously praising our Father. It’s comforting to know we’re together in doing what we were made for, even though she is gone from the flesh and we’re not. So cool to know her soul is alive and well, singing real loud to Jesus along with all her family, friends and mentees!
I get really squeamish when I hear people talking about how their mamas’ are still with them . . . how they talk to them every day. I can’t connect those dots in Scripture or common sense. But I can believe a person’s soul, which was known by God before it was put into a body, will live on for eternity. And when you add the fact that we’re created to worship God and to be with Him, I totally get the picture of Angie singing praises to God from heaven, me singing praises to God from here, and God hearing both voices at the same time in beautiful harmony of heart.
Dallas Willard was a brilliant theologian, philosopher and teacher. He taught that a person is ‘a collection of conscious experiences’ that will go right on uninterrupted by death. He quoted Jesus who said, “The one who trusts in me will never taste death.”
I translate that to mean we go to sleep in this world and wake up in the next. We’re still conscious of who we were, but with transformed bodies, sinless hearts and unfettered exuberance for what comes next (all that’s predicated on knowing Jesus so we wake up with Him, not without Him).
I’ve heard the widow ask, “I wonder what my husband is doing up there in heaven right now. I so wish I could be with him. To do stuff together like we used to.”
Well, the closest you’re going to come is to sing a song of authentic praise and know he’s singing the same song at the same time to the same awesome God.
And that’s pretty good.
Prayer: Lord, thank you for wanting to be with us. From the beginning, that’s why you made us and all you ever wanted. Thank you for giving us a way to get back to where we started . . . walking with you, experiencing your Presence in the smallest of moments. And I especially thank you for the comfort You’ve given through this vision of those who’ve gone on to be with you singing praises in concert with us who are still here. You think of everything! Amen.
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