Today's Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 73 verses 25 and 26:
25 Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
26 My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
A year and a half ago Ted Dotts, one of Second B's former pastors and one of the great mentors in my life, came back to for an evening talk which he asked to title: "A Discussion on Death and Dying with a Dying Man". Ted was indeed dying with cancer and would pass away within a month.
The thing that made that night so holy was Ted's honesty about his death, his courage in facing it, and his abiding faith in the God of resurrection life.
In the end, Ted said that the gift death gives us is the knowledge that, "Only God can save us." Ted then went on to name a litany of things that we trust in life as if they will save us: money, possessions, reputation, retirement accounts, medical care, and even our own morality. The gift of death is the disillusion that any of these things can be trusted for ultimate security. In the end, only God can save us.
Our Lesson today reminds us as much. Our flesh and our hearts and all the relationships and "things" of this world will fail us. But God is our strength and portion forever. In other words, in Jesus' words, it is "the one necessary thing -- the thing that cannot be taken away."
To watch the extraordinary conversation with Ted from that evening go to: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Bg0S9mlE7c8
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