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“. . . give thanks in all circumstances.”  – 1 Thessalonians 5:18 

True or false:  the one who dies with the most toys wins.  Or how about the one who has the most money wins?  What about the one who is the most brilliant and has the most advanced degrees, or the one who has reached the highest level in his or her organization or profession, the one who has traveled the most, has the most beautiful wife or debonair husband, the best athlete, the most talented artist or musician, has won the most awards, become the most famous or the most powerful?  In the end who wins?  The answer, of course, is false.  But if it is none of these great successes, who does win?

A man who wrestled mightily with this question was none other than King Solomon, the wisest and richest man who ever lived, and though he had everything and tried almost everything both good and bad, toward the end of his life came to the conclusion that nothing – I mean nothing – on this earth can fully satisfy a human’s desire for complete fulfillment.  “Meaningless! . . . Utterly meaningless!  Everything is meaningless . . . a chasing after the wind,” he declared in his essay we know as the Book of Ecclesiastes.

Alcoholics, they say, are not people who drink too much; rather people who can never drink enough.  Their thirst for alcohol – their addiction – can never be satisfied.  So it is with every earthly desire, as Solomon declares, no matter how much we have it is never enough.  Our thirst – our desire for fulfillment – is never satisfied.

I think I can identify with that, what Solomon wrestled with.  While I am far from being wealthy and wise like the great king, I have certainly had my share of good fortune at times.  But it has never been enough, often leaving me with a desire for more.  Yet, like the alcoholic, even when I manage to attain more it never seems to be enough.

So, in the end who really does win?  Recently we were asked to pick up one of our granddaughters from school, as we are sometimes called upon to do, after which we treated her to ice cream, then just hung out for a while.  It was an absolutely delightful spring day.  At some point it came over me during that brief time, what a blessed man I am.  It was a taste of what it feels like to truly win at life.  As the scriptures say, “give thanks in all circumstances,” I learned that day; for in the end, that is who wins.

“He has risen!”  – Mark 16:6 

My friend was once driving along an interstate highway out in the middle of nowhere when suddenly her car stalled.  Being near an exit she managed to coast off the freeway and out of traffic.  For twenty minutes she sat before deciding to contact AAA, but just in case she turned the key one more time.  Sure enough the car started right up as if nothing was wrong.  So, on she went, until twenty minutes down the road –the exact time her car had been stalled – she came upon a deadly multi-vehicle accident.  Had her car not mysteriously stalled my friend would surely have been one of the victims.

My friend seemed hesitant at first to share this incident with me, perhaps concerned whether I could be trusted to believe such an unbelievable story.  She did, though, either because she perceived me to be a person of deep religious faith, or maybe because I’m just whacko enough to believe in such mysterious stories.  The truth is, I’m probably a little bit of both; that is, a person of faith, but also a little whacko at times, even to the point of doubting on occasions, depending on which side of the bed I wake up on.

If I am all those things – believer, whacko, and occasional doubter – at least I am in good company.  According to scripture when Mary Magdalene and the other women discovered Jesus’ tomb open and empty, a young man sitting beside it informed them that Jesus was not there. “He has risen!” he exclaimed, then instructed them to go tell Peter and the other disciples what they had seen and heard.  But when she told them they did not believe it, not at first anyway.  They doubted such a tale, thought it was whacko.  

“Part of what it means to believe in God,” author and theologian Frederick Buechner once wrote, “is to believe in the possibility of miracle.”  Maybe that’s why my friend felt confident to share her story, because she thought I might believe in the possibility that a car-stalling angel could show up on an interstate out in the middle of nowhere.  But the greatest miracle of all, the one that has changed people throughout the centuries, from Mary Magdalene and Peter and the other disciples, the miracle that changed my own life and has given me both peace and purpose, is Jesus Christ raised from the dead.  “He has risen!” exclaimed the young man.  May this greatest of all miracles give you peace and purpose as well.  The Lord is risen.  He is risen indeed!  Happy Easter.

“. . . unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed.  But if it dies, it produces many seeds.”  – John 12:24 

An artist friend once explained to me that as a rule of thumb after an artist dies his or her works almost instantly double in value.  As a businessman that made perfect sense to me; after all, once the creator no longer exists his or her works become finite, there will be no more of them, thus making them increasingly more valuable.

I wonder, though, if there is not something deeper than the mere supply-demand dynamics of the marketplace.  Could it be that artists are never fully appreciated for their good works, and the perspectives they reflect on the world and on life, until after they are gone?  Perhaps that’s true for all of us, not just artists.  Consider, for example, Abraham Lincoln who in his time was merely another president – and a controversial one at that – until after his death.  Then and only then did history consider him as having been our country’s greatest president, and a role model for his successors.

Jesus was trying to teach this to his followers in preparation for his own death.  “I tell you the truth,” he explained, “unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed.  But if it dies, it produces many seeds.”  Consider the fact that during his lifetime Jesus traveled no more than a few hundred miles mostly within the region of Galilee.  Most likely he did not encounter all that many people, especially compared to today’s mass media capabilities, and his most faithful followers were but a small ragtag group.  Yet the seed that fell to the ground from the cross where he died that then sprouted in the hearts of his ragtag group of followers transformed the world.

“In that lies the mystery of life,” adds gospel singer and songwriter Michael Card.  But first we must die to our self-centered ways; then and only then will the purpose of our lives turn toward serving God and mankind.  And it is in that dying to self where lies the mystery of life that Michael Card is referring to; for that is where we discover not the loss of life but the abundance of it.  And from that abundant life we build an abundant legacy that after we’re gone – like the artists – becomes increasingly more valuable.

“I hereby put you in charge of the whole land of Egypt.”  – Genesis 41:41 

Call George!  Why George?  Because when someone asked George to do something, or when George was given responsibility, you could “take it to the bank” as they say, that it would get done right and on time.  George lived by the principles which Dan Sullivan described in his book How the Best Get Better as the “referability habits.”  That is, “show up on time, do what you say, finish what you start, say please and thank you.”

When George Woodley showed up at the doorstep of my dad’s business many years ago, fresh out of the army, newly married, and looking for work, it was a godsend.  My dad didn’t know that at the time, of course, but it didn’t take long before his work ethic, dependability, faithfulness, integrity, and capability became obvious.  It’s not unlike the Biblical story when Pharoah discovered similar qualities in a young Hebrew fresh out of prison named Joseph who he quickly promoted.  “I hereby put you in charge of the whole land of Egypt,” the Pharoah declared.  It didn’t take my dad long either to reach the same conclusion, promoting George and placing him in charge of the whole operation.

For the next twenty-two years, until the business was sold, my dad grew to depend on George more and more, for everything from managing the business to his personal life.  Whenever he needed help, or a problem solved, he knew he could depend on George.  Except, sometimes when overwhelmed by a problem he would forget, until my mother would remind him not to worry, “just call George.”  Eventually, he and his wife Ruth became like beloved members of our family and have remained so to this day.

I had a fantasy recently, imagining the Lord seeking my dad’s counsel.  Daddy just looked at the Lord and shrugged, “No problem,” he said, “just call George.”  “Good idea,” the Lord replied.  So, he called George – calling him home.  Oh, that everyone could be blessed with a George in their lives as our family has been all these years.  Even more, if only more of us would live by George’s example, a man full of years, married sixty-eight years to his high school sweetheart, Ruth, the love of his life, who together raised a fine family, was a faithful and dependable servant not just to my dad but to many; a good neighbor, a fine citizen, a man of deep faith and an impeccable reputation; one who if anyone ever needed anything, all they had to do was call George.

“Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy. . . The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy.”  – Psalm 126:2,3 

Army basic training, for those of us who have experienced it, is hardly a laughing matter; that is, unless you had the good fortune as I did to have a guy like Al Williams constantly at your side.  For eight weeks the two of us, because we were alphabetical – Williams and Wilson – stood side-by-side in formation, bunked next to each other in the barracks, and were training partners much of the time.  Al with his hilarious sense of humor kept me in stitches, making my boot camp a barrel of laughs instead of the grueling experience it could have been.  The most difficult thing I had to endure was keeping a straight face so I wouldn’t get yelled at for inappropriately busting out laughing over something he had just whispered to me while we were standing at attention.

For as long as I can remember Reader’s Digest magazine has included a joke section called “Laughter, the Best Medicine” which I believe to be true in that laughter has contributed to my own good health most of my life.  Even now, Tee and I start each day by chuckling over the comic section in the newspaper, and sometimes end the day by reading a few jokes before turning out the light from Garrison Keillor’s Pretty Good Joke Book, a copy of which I keep on the beside-table.  Laughter is indeed great medicine.

Life, as we all know, like basic training is at times no laughing matter . . . that is, unless you can see the humor in it.  Humor, though, is not about being less serious about life; rather it helps keep life and our role in it in perspective.  Even though my army buddy and I laughed our way through boot camp we did take the training with the life-and-death seriousness for which it was intended.

Humor and laughter are gifts from God, comical versions of our human failings, reminding us that only God is perfect, and we are not.  But God has a great ability to restore us from our imperfections, and when that occurs as the Psalmist reminds us, “Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy. . . The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy.”  Life is hardly a laughing matter; unless, of course, you happen to have God constantly by your side like Al Williams was to me in boot camp, bringing joy to our lives instead of the grueling experience it could be.