a matter of life and death.

I have been fortunate throughout my lifetime to have very few encounters with death. I grew up rather unfamiliar with the reality, finality, and pain of death. In today’s society of constant news I have even become jaded to the daily reports of lives lost in war or in other tragic circumstances. Unfortunately, today death has become evermore real to me. This morning I learned that a high school peer of mine died this weekend in a motorcycle crash. I can’t say that I was very close friends with him or that we spoke more than a dozen times over the six years I knew him, but it’s still hard to believe that he’s gone.

In the news report he was referred to as a “21-year-old Overland Park man.” I was struck not only because he was so young, but also that he was referred to as a “man.” When did we become men? Weren’t we just teenage boys playing basketball together in P.E and anxiously talking about girls?

It’s moments like this that reminds me of the frailty of life and the suddenness of death. Although I still can’t fully grasp the reality of death, I am reminded of the meaning and purpose of my life.

The lyrics of a MercyMe song say, “You never know why you’re alive, until you know what you would die for.” I would die for Christ. Maybe it’s time for you to consider what you would die for.

Mike, Rest in Peace.