Many years ago, I was the teacher for the Teens on Wednesday nights.  If you have not yet attempted to capture the attention of Teens on Wednesday nights in order to imprint on their memory banks some Biblical knowledge, I hope you will have that opportunity someday.  In some ways, it must be experienced to be believed.  Young men and women, after half a week of school, come into Bible class as a strange combination of being both tired and wired.  They come in with their minds already stuffed with data supplied by their school teachers, and with the blood coursing through their bodies full of hormones of every description, and with every emotion from apathy to antagonism seething in their heads - just waiting to be triggered by anything, or by nothing at all.  The Wednesday night Teen Bible Class is a real minefield into which the teacher steps.  He or she is probably already teetering on the edge of job-induced stress and life-induced exhaustion, and now he or she faces the terrifying responsibility of trying to present The Bible to a classroom of [to quote a line from the movie and tv show, "The Paper Chase", wonderfully delivered to a classroom full of eager first year law students by Professor Kingsfield of the Harvard Law School, as portrayed by the great John Houseman] "young skulls full of mush", so that they will leave looking and thinking a little more like Jesus.  

No pressure, right?  It's just their eternal souls on the line.  These teachers can probably wing it; they can probably come up with a life-changing lesson on the drive from their office to the church building, right?  No.  And I am amazed by those men and women who accept the responsibility, and the challenge, and the sacrifice necessary to prepare and teach Bible lessons for Teens, and for all ages.  Thank you!

Anyway, in an attempt to engage the attention of those "young skulls" one Wednesday night, I had them play a game of "What would you do if you knew  ______?"  You can fill in the blank with almost anything and create interesting spiritual conversation and interaction.  "What would you do if you knew your friend planned to shoplift?  Or if you knew the questions that were going to be on a test?  Or if you knew your parents were thinking about divorce?"  The possibilities are endless.  And they can get very deep - “What would you do if you knew someone was going to die?”

This all came back to me while watching the Celebration of the life of Lynn Anderson [which I mentioned in this blog two weeks ago].  Max Lucado said that every time he saw Lynn, he would tell him, “Thank you”.  He did this because he credited Lynn [and The Holy Spirit] with turning his entire life around by introducing him to the Jesus of The Bible, the real Jesus, the Jesus of grace.  Did Lynn know that Max was grateful?  Of course.  But Max told him “Thank you” every time they met anyway.  He didn’t have regrets about what he should have said; he didn’t have to wonder what he might have done differently if he had known that Lynn was about to die.

What would I have done differently if I had known that Renee was about to die?  What would I have changed if I had known that the last thing she would hear me say was a mumbled “Good night”?  Or if I had known that our last kiss would be as I tried to blow air into lungs that no longer worked?  Or if I had known that the last time I would hold her hand – her now cold and unmoving hand -  would be as I waited for the Coroner to take her away?

I wish I had known.  There are so many things that I would have changed, that I would have done differently – not just that day, but every day that I was blessed by her presence.  Things could have been so much better, if only.

Maybe it’s best that we don’t know such things.  Maybe God keeps this information from us so that we will live every day so there will be no regrets, no doubts, no wishes that we would have done things differently.

Maybe now I have learned.      

Ambrose Ramsey | Pastor and Shepherd