Thanksgiving Reflection: There Is No Time

“Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints.”

(Psalm 116:15)

Yesterday Christie and I learned that Bev has gone to be with her Lord. Bev was a relatively new friend to us. She and her husband and their five children ages 6 to 17 have been serving in countries around the Middle East for over twenty years. We met them last year when they came to Lebanon from Syria. We have a lot in common. Same age and married about as long. Four boys and one girl. Homeschoolers. We were looking forward to serving together for a season here in Tyre where they had just moved last summer to serve with the Evangelical school here. Bev was diagnosed two weeks ago with late stage ovarian cancer. Christie and our daughter, Jemmilie helped them pack up for a flight home last Friday. Saturday they landed in America where they were immediately surrounded by the embrace of their family and church. Last week on Monday she was admitted to a hospital. The following Sunday she went in for emergency surgery. Monday night she went home to be with Jesus. Our prayers are with this precious family today.

There’s a little book in front of me on my desk titled “There Is No Time.” The book is a (very) short didactic novel about a missionary and his friends coming to the conclusion that we need to think differently about missions and the role of the Western missionary because of the changing nature of the world (globalization) and the fact that the places in the world with the most unreached people groups are frequently also the most instable places in the world. But for us today, for many other reasons and in many other very personal ways,  ‘there is no time.’ Positively, there’s no time to hold your wife long enough. There’s no time to give your kids your full attention enough in a week to show them you really do love them more than your work. Negatively, there’s no time for anger and bitterness and vindictiveness. There’s no time for petty squabbles to keep us from loving each other with the love of Christ. There is no time to be ungrateful. We must not cheapen our lives by practicing thanksgiving only annually. The brevity of our time on this turf demands that we be, “giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.” (Eph. 5:20) Why does it take the death of a saint, so precious in the sight of the Lord, to remind us and convince us, that there just ‘is no time’?

Thankful for the time we have this Thanksgiving,

Jonathan & Christie Swift