Last night I had the responsibility and honor of performing a memorial service for a young man who passed away at the age of 23. He seemed in perfect health and the autopsy has yielded nothing in terms of a cause. I had the daunting task of standing in front of a packed church to try to offer some comfort and biblical understanding that might help ease the grief of bereaved friends and family.

I mean, what do you say? This is a young man who came from a loving  home and lots of people loved and cared for him. The stories that people shared about him brought laughter and tears.

As I was prayerfully considering what I would share, Psalm 46 came to mind. You can look it up if you’ve never read it before, but I want to key in on one particular passage. Psalm 46:10 says, “Be still and know that I am God.” 

What do we do in a world where someone can drop dead in the prime of life without any kind of explanation? What do we do when the illusion of control is destroyed and we realize the extreme frailty of human existence? What do we do when we truly realize that our time on earth is fleeting?

Be still and know that he is God. To be still means to let go, to cease striving and stop worrying. It means that we release our death grip on life and recognize that we live on borrowed time. This isn’t to say that we live with a sense of apathy or indifference…not at all! On the contrary, it’s only as we let go and surrender to God that we are able to love God fully and love others unconditionally (the two things Jesus said sum up the purpose of human existence. See Luke 10:27).

Know that he is God. We need to recognize we are not the managers of the universe. Things ran fine before we came into the world and they’ll run fine after we leave. Our role as human beings is to walk in step with our Creator. (See Micah 6:8).

That church last night was not packed out by accident. Death can be an incredible teacher if we allow it to be. I learned something from this young man even though I didn’t have the privilege of knowing him. You find out what’s important in life at a funeral by paying attention to what’s said and what’s not said. Nobody was talking about how much money he had. They weren’t talking about all his trophies and every award he received. It’s not to say those things aren’t important, they’re just not most important. What people talk about at a funeral are the things that transcend death itself. They talk about the kind of person you were. The kind of husband or father or wife or mom. They talk about how loyal you were as a friend and how generous you were.

Life is all about investments. Every single day we make small investments with our time, talent and treasure that will have massive cumulative results. The question is, what are you investing in? I want to thank Matthew O’Grady for what he taught me last night. I did not have the privilege of knowing you, but you taught me to love more intentionally and to expend myself in the realm of relationships. Our relationship with God and with others will last for eternity. We would do well to spend the majority of our time and energy on things that will have lasting impact.