He was born in the Spring of 1921. His mother took her job to raise him up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord very seriously. She taught him from his earliest memories that the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. He spent the rest of his life discovering what that meant.
What does a man that glorifies God look like? This was a question that he and I often talked about. He was a quiet man, a farmer. But this morning I read something that reminded me of him, "Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the streams. It does not fear when the heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit." ( Jer. 17: 7,8)
When you live to be in your nineties you are bound to know days of drought as well as days of plenty, so it was for my father in law. But he was a humble man whose trust was in the Lord. In good times and bad he placed his confidence in God and not in himself or the circumstances he found himself in. He had been shown as as young child where the stream of living water was and that is were he sank his roots.
The night before last I sat watching the Sun set remembering the conversation he and I had the day before he died. I remembered asking him the question his mother had asked him so many years ago, "What is the chief end of man?" Without hesitation but with a smile he said,"The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever." He died the next morning. We had his Memorial on what would have been his 91st birthday had he lived. As I sat in that room full of people who had been touched by his life I remembered another verse, "For when David had served God's purpose in his own generation, he fell asleep." (Acts 13: 36)
Father, when my life has ended may it be said of me that I brought Your glory and that mine was a life marked by the joy that belongs to someone who belongs to You.
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