Timothy Jay Crawford
Timothy Jay Crawford
Lord Tennyson said, “ ’Tis good to remember a man for his deeds.” (Give obituary information about family, work, church, etc.)
His hobby was work.
He was always busy.
He was neat, real neat.
His yard looked like the 18th green.
He was a great neighbor.
He was always ready to help others.
Others, Lord, yes others.
Let this my motto be.
Help me to live for others
That I might live for Thee.
(C.D. Meigs, public domain.)
May I suggest to ’s family three thoughts. First of all, God’s thoughts are different from our thoughts. As high as the heavens are above the earth, God’s thoughts are higher than our thoughts. When I was a little boy of eight or nine years of age, it was not easy for me to understand the wishes of my father, much older. In faith and love I was obedient because I trusted him, although I did not always understand.
We’re victims of partial knowledge. We see the parade of life from ground level. God from his vantage point is looking on the parade of life like a person from a tall building; he sees the beginning and the end. I doubt that the psalmist thought during the time of affliction that later he’d be able to say, “It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes” (Psalm 119:71, KJV).
Though beyond understanding,
May this set your heart at rest,
That somewhere in all his goodness
A loving God knows best.
I suggest that something special will come from this funeral. The rose that’s crushed gives forth a greater fragrance. The sharpest pictures are developed in the darkest rooms. There’s going to be depth and meaningfulness in your life that you’ve never known before. God’s thoughts are different.
Second, his techniques are different, for God’s ways are not as our ways. Several years ago Wayne Smith held a revival in Griffin, Indiana, a small town on the Illinois border. The minister showed him the scars of a tornado that had taken place many years ago. Smith asked, “Were any lives lost?”
He said, “Twin boys in a Christian home.” The mother’s sorrow led to depression and questioning. She asked her minister, “Where was God when my sons were taken?”
He replied, “In the same place he was when his son was taken.”
The Bible says he’s acquainted with our grief and understands our sorrow. There are several ways we can react to this homegoing. We can surrender and give up; we can become hard and cynical; or we can say as a Christian, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” (1 Corinthians 15:55, KJV). To be absent from the body is to be at home with the Lord.
Finally, God’s timetable is not ours—his thoughts, his techniques, and his timetable. This death seems untimely, yet others have left at a much earlier age. Peter says a thousand years is as a day and a day as a thousand years. If this is true, not any of us is very old in God’s sight.
I have on occasions misplaced my Bible, which is the Word of God. Surely no one would suggest I have lost God. I have on occasions loaned sermon books that have never been returned. You would not suggest that I’ve lost a message written on my heart. Suppose I misplaced the address of some dear friends. Would you suggest I had lost their friendship? Admittedly, today we’ve lost ’s companionship, but not his fellowship.