TAKE ME HOME, I'M READY! -- Devotional for August 24, from "Good Seeds"

For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith. (II Timothy 4:6-7)

The life that has coursed through the old apostle’s body for so many years is now running out of it – even as the ink drains from his pen. And yet, with a deftness and boldness belying his age, he scratches out these final words to his young protégé, and to you and me, “I present my life once again, one last time, to Jesus. I have poured myself into His work – now I pour myself out to Him, my final expression of faith, the last offering of praise from this old body.” Although no one knows ahead of time the exact moment of his death, sometimes God reveals to His dear one when the time is nigh, even while he can still think and speak. The time of Paul’s departure had come, somehow he just knew it. It was time to speak his last words. Do we detect any fear in them? Any question marks anywhere? How about just a hint of regret, a tint of sorrow? No! Not a bit of it! Even as he says, "The process has already begun," without pause he continues, “and I’m all ready to go!” I talked to my dear old friend, Clara Neilsen, just moments ago on the phone. I told her my parents hit the golden years long ago, and now they’re leaving them behind, in favor of those Golden Gates! I told her Mom hasn’t lain in a hospital for maybe 40 years, but now she’s spending many an unpleasant day down there. “Is she ready to travel?” Clara asked. “Oh yes, she’s ready,” I answered. “Well, Papa made it to just shy of 93, but when it was his time to go, he reached up his arms and said, ‘Take me home, I’m ready.’” Wow! But now, dear reader, what is your goal in life, your highest aspiration, your greatest ambition? Should it not be this: to be able to say, with your last breath, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith. Now pour my soul out of this old body, Lord, and pour me into my new one! Take me home, Father. I’m ready to go”? What is your favorite Bible word? Grace? Jesus? Heaven? Those are great choices, but now, how about this one from today’s passage: Rapture? “Where does it say that?” you protest. “I just see the word departure.” “I rest my case,” say I, “for that is its exact meaning: rapture means departure!” We use the word rapture to mean, “ carried away by over-flowing joy.” Again, I rest my case. Who wouldn’t be overjoyed to slip the surly bonds of this old earth, the gravity pull of this old sinful body? Who wouldn’t kick up his heels in ecstasy at his long-awaited and well-planned prison break? Can you say, with the poet, “Ere long my soul shall fly away, and leave this tenement of clay; This robe of flesh I’ll drop and rise to seize the everlasting prize”?