Men Before Whom I Bow

February 10, 2015

In the past two days, I've had conversations with two different men who expressed to me their concern for friends who without Christ are staring death in the face or are in the twilight years of life. Recent conversations with a couple other pastors reveal an entirely different reality they face. Instead of men aware of eternal realities who grieve at the prospect of friends facing eternity without Christ, they were dealing with squabbling senior citizens frantically trying to retain their grasp of whatever turf they feel they possess. They are presiding over grey, declining congregations which haven't had a children's Sunday School in years, churches where the cry of a baby is never heard.

I am blessed to have led a congregation of young and middle-aged families, where the sight and sound of little children running and laughing through the lobby is commonplace, where teenagers cook breakfast in the kitchen before their Sunday School class, where nearly twenty men meet every Monday night to study God's Word and pray, where these same men heft tools to help widows and suit up to serve meals to the poor. And where two of them talk to me about their concern for friends who don't know Christ.

This morning I was reading in Exodus God's instructions for the priestly garb for Aaron and his sons. Part of the instructions call for a breastplate holding twelve stones engraved with the names of the tribes of Israel, and for a golden headband engraved with the words "Holiness to the LORD." The priest was not to come into the presence of God without the people of God on his heart and the holiness of God on his mind. I was immediately convicted. How often did I try to enter the presence of God while failing to adequately pray for the very people he called me to serve? How often did I try to enter his presence with a mind clouded by unconfessed sin? I am embarrassed to admit my failure in these two areas, and wonder how much more God wanted to do in and through me, but for one thing: I stood in the way. This reading was sandwiched between these two conversations about my friends' concerns for the lost, and I am humbled before God.

These two men are not the only ones whose hearts beat for the lost; I am literally surrounded by them every Monday night; men who pray for their friends, families, co-workers, and neighbors. They are concerned about eternal destinies, the hard realities of heaven and hell; they literally weep at the thought of people they know dying without Christ; they witness as best they know how, and then come asking if there is anything else they can do to possibly influence their friends for Christ. I am humbled by their love and their boldness, honored to have been their pastor, and grateful to call them my friends.