The late Pastor John Piper once spoke to a group of young people.
Three weeks ago, we got news at our church that Ruby Eliason and Laura Edwards were killed in Cameroon.
Ruby Eliason – over 80, single all her life, a nurse., poured her life out for one thing: to make Jesus Christ known among the sick and the poor in the hardest most unreached places.
Laura Edwards, a medical doctor in the Twin Cities, and in her retirement, partnering up with Ruby.
Both pushing 80, and going from village to village in Cameroon. One day, the brakes gave way, over a cliff they go, and they’re dead instantly. And I asked my people, “Is this a tragedy?”
Two women, almost in their eighties, a whole life devoted to one idea – Jesus Christ magnified among the poor and the sick in the hardest places. And twenty years after most of their American counterparts had begun to throw their lives away on trivialities in Florida and New Mexico, they fly into eternity with a death in a moment. “Is this a tragedy?”
The crowd of forty thousand high school and college students sat in stunned silence.
I will tell you what a tragedy is. I will show you how to waste your life. Consider this story from the February 1998 Reader’s Digest: A couple “took early retirement from their jobs in the Northeast five years ago when he was 59 and she was 51. Now they live in Punta Gorda, Florida, where they cruise on the 30-foot-trawler, play softball and collect shells…”
Picture them before Christ at the great day of judgment: “Look, Lord. See my shells.”
That is a tragedy!
Praxis: Faith in Action 