In the movie City Slickers, the tough guy Curly turns to Mitch and asks him, “Do you know what the secret of life is?” Holding up a finger he answers his own question saying, “This.” Mitch asks, “Your finger?” Ignoring him Curly replies, “One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and the rest (doesn’t matter at all).” (Paraphrased) Mitch presses on asking, “But what’s ‘the one thing’?” Curly answers, “That’s what you have to find out.”
Have you discovered ‘the one thing’ in your life? That thing which, at the end of life, and through it, matters the very most to you?
Leadership guru and former pastor John Maxwell talks about how our lives are summed up in just 6-7 words…those words that will fit on our tombstone. He adds, “You can either let someone else choose them when you die or you can choose them now and live your life by them.”
I used to have a book of Yankee epitaphs, real inscriptions on the tombstones of New Englanders. Some of them were silly and some were serious. One said, “I TOLD you I was sick!” Another one was a boulder that simply said, “This one’s on me.” One of my favorites was the one written about John Pease who enjoyed MORE than seven words:
“Under the sod and under the trees
Lies the body of Jonathan Pease.
Pease is not there, there’s only the pod.
Pease shelled out and went to God.”
If someone else looked at your activities, how would they summarize your life?
Sure made a lot of money.
Was a dedicated worker.
One of the busiest people in town.
Keeper of a cute and tidy house.
Best bridge player in the community.
Devoted to family.
Loved unconditionally.
Loved God – Loved Others.
Faithful – Beloved- Missed
What words would you choose to reflect your ‘one thing?’ Choose these now and live by them and you might just discover the secret of life.
“Live a life worthy of the calling you have received.”
Ephesians 4:1b
A few years back while visiting our paternal family plot in Winterset, Iowa…we stood right in front of a huge boulder…it was always there…we just took it for granted that it was part of the landscape. Not so! It was our grandfather’s granite tombstone…and barely legible was the inscription: ” On Christ the Solid Rock I stand…all others are but shifting sand.” Staunch Methodist, he was, drawing his tombstone words from the following:
My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly trust in Jesus’ Name.
When darkness seems to hide His lovely face,
I rest on His unchanging grace.
In every high and stormy gale,
My anchor holds within the veil.
On Christ the solid Rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand;
All other ground is sinking sand.
His oath, His covenant, His blood,
Support me in the whelming flood.
When all around my soul gives way,
He then is all my Hope and Stay.
On Christ the solid Rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand;
All other ground is sinking sand.
When He shall come with trumpet sound,
Oh may I then in Him be found.
Dressed in His righteousness alone,
Faultless to stand before the throne.
On Christ the solid Rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand;
All other ground is sinking sand.
On Christ the solid Rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand;
All other ground is sinking sand.
So true…thank you.
“She let Gods love shine through her like a morning sunrise and loved HIS people deeply”
Best, Emily
As a child of God she gave away love to all.