As I tuned into the radio while driving my Hyundai on Friday morning, I received word of Michael Jackson's death. A few hours later, upon checking my e-mail, I received word that my friend, Chris Leggett, had been targeted and killed by two Al-Quaida gunmen. (his crime: loving people with the love of Jesus and investing his life into the people of Mauritania)
Two lives. Two legacies. Two eternities. Both lived. Both died.
The Bible reads, "It is appointed to man once to die, and then the judgment." (Hebrews 9:27)
Since hearing of their deaths, my facebook is flooded with notifications concerning Michael Jackson quizzes, applications, and memoirs, yet eeringly silent on my buddy, Chris. But my spirit begs to ask the question, who REALLY lived? What does it mean to live? Is life REALLY only to live and then to die? Or is there more?
Does the fame, the crowds, the girls, the money really add up to much in the end? Did Michael Jackson really find the joy and peace he was looking for, or did he come up empty? I find it sad, yet interesting, to have heard today that Jackson died with nearly a half BILLION dollars of debt. A man who couldn't decide if he wanted to be a man. A man who had "everything" BUT didn't have enough.
Meanwhile, my friend Chris, his wife, and four kids gave up their comfortable home in Tennessee to pursue a calling God had given them---not forced upon them...to go to the proverbial ends of the earth to love a people they didn't know. To pour their lives out. They went, not to earn favor in God's eyes, but because of love for their King. There wasn't any glamour or money involved. But they had MORE than enough...it was time to give away.
The Leggetts recognized, "There’s far more here than meets the eye. The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow. But the things we can’t see now will last forever." (2 Corinthians 4:18 The Message)
The more I live, the more I realize life isn't about following a certain religion or about self-pursuits. Rather, it's about finding the purpose for which we were created.
And I truly believe that purpose is found in a relationship with God our creator...a relationship that says, I want to "know you" and experience you by the "power of your resurrection and the fellowship of your sufferings" because I've tasted your eternal love and it satisfies all my longing. (Philippians 3:10)
How better to taste HIS love than to love...love extravagantly every person you meet. Share compassion with the hurting, minister kindness to the afflicted, give of yourself to those who have nothing. SHOW the world Jesus...let your life tell! As Will Rogers wisely said, "People's minds are changed through observation, not argument."
I've been to over fifty nations, met thousands upon thousands of people, and had my heart broken over the wickedness of this world, but please listen to this...I've found more hope in the hell-holes of Calcutta, the trash-heaps of Muquattam, and the shanty-towns of Phnom Penh than in the palaces and mansions of the wealthy from Dubai to LA. Why?
Perhaps it's because the things of the world blind us to the truest reality of life...and that being, God's love for the people He created. Sometimes, He has to take things away for us to pay attention to that which is valuable.
If this is the case, I want nothing more than to "know HIM." For in that desire, I have everything.
I'm not sure where Jackson stood in his relationship with God. That's between him and God.
But when Chris Leggett's spirit left his bloodied bullet-ridden body which lay on that dusty Mauritanian soil on Tuesday morning, Jesus rose from His throne and announced, "My precious son is coming home!"
Well done Chris...you ran well...you won the race!
(I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Finally, there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have loved His appearing. II Timothy 4:7-8)
