FROM THE PASTOR
March 18, 2018
Connie and I completed our Estate Planning Portfolio this week. The process was actually a little daunting as it included a Revocable Living Trust, Trustee assignments, Last Will and Testament, Durable Power of Attorney in several areas, Patient Advocate Designation, Advance Directives, and Distribution of Assets. As much of a hassle as it was, we did it because we wanted the courts to stay away and our children to understand our wishes.
Surprisingly, we spent the greatest amount of time on the Advance Directives. It wasn’t the thought of, or dealing with death that gave us the greatest amount of pause… it was determining what role the doctor, who for all we know only has worldly wisdom, would be allowed in the end-of-life decision. Quality of life for one person is never exactly the same for the next and we never want to get ahead of God. While Connie and I trust each other and our children to be sensitive to God’s leading we don’t have the same trust in the earthly wisdom of a doctor. Because of that, we spent considerable time understanding the legal terms and implications written in the Directives to ensure our loved ones, not the doctor, is in control and sensitive to God’s leading.
As I reflect back on the process, I cannot express in adequate terms the joy I have that God knows the exact number of my days.
Psalm 139:16 (NASB)
16 Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; And in Your book were all written The days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was not one of them.
I am also thankful that we don’t have to fear that death has the final say. I read where Stephen Hawking, the renowned theoretical physicist who was stricken with Lou Gehrig’s Disease has died. Hawking was not modest about what he wanted to do. "My goal is simple," he once said. "It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all."
He was also atheist… taking a jab at religion, he stated, "I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark."
God’s Word addresses the wisdom of man like this…
1 Corinthians 3:19 (NASB)
19 For the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God. For it is written, "He is THE ONE WHO CATCHES THE WISE IN THEIR CRAFTINESS";
1 Corinthians 1:19-21 (NASB)
19 For it is written, "I WILL DESTROY THE WISDOM OF THE WISE, AND THE CLEVERNESS OF THE CLEVER I WILL SET ASIDE."
20 Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?
21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.
As a Pastor my heart aches to know that one more soul has chosen to stay the course to an eternity in hell. But Hawking’s is now aware of the answer to his life’s goal… IT IS GOD. Who do you depend on today? Wisdom from God or wisdom from man?
Thank you for your faithfulness. Pastor Larry
