We made a visit to a good friend's this last Sunday. His name is Cesar and his wife on the left is Andrea. Bruce our friend was visiting with us. So I took him to visit with Cesar. We had a great time hanging out with them. I always leave after visiting with him so challenged. As I sit writing this, I think of the pain that he is enduring. I am thinking about how he has been bound to his bed for 9 years. I think about how he has not been able to go outside, go on a walk, go to his kid's school activities or even eat a decent meal. And yet I have not once heard him complain about any of these things. He has been battling a debilitating, terminal disease for 12 years. His bones are fusing together and degenerating. His faculties are shutting down. He has ulcers from all the pain medicine he has to take and yet still has tremendous pain. Yet he remains focused.
Cesar is a man on a mission. He is living on mission while bound to his bed. He often tells us how he use to go door to door share Jesus with people and people use to shoot the door in his face or say they didn't want to hear about it. And now people come to him and not once has anyone said he couldn't share. He takes every opportunity with ever visitor to testify of Jesus Christ!
He challenges me and many who visit him. He challenges us to remain focused and to live for what is important and not complain when life gets tough. Not many of us if any will ever face the pain and suffering he has and is going through.
He oftens share this verse from Ecclesiastes 3:20 "All go to the same place; all comes from dust, and to dust all return." He shares this as he talks about how what we can see is temporal but what we can't see is eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:18) It is so easy to get focused on what does not matter and lose sight of what does matter. 100 years from now what will matter? That is what we should spend our time, resources and energy on!
From dust we came and to dust we will return...what are doing that will last beyond the dust?
