I Went to a Funeral & Finally Watched Iron Man.

That is what I literally did last  Friday. Well, I also went to physics lab in the morning.

Funerals. I have been to many in my life. I even have a specific black dress that I keep on hand, the funeral dress, like a go bag it's ready when I need it even on a moments notice. I guess it is kind of morbid having a "funeral dress" (my sisters and I seriously call it that), But it comes in handy and considering the number of funerals I've been to it's nice just having one go to outfit. 

At this past funeral, my sister noted that she's almost been to more funerals than years she has been alive. At one of the funerals I was at a couple of years ago, my one friend said that it was the first one she'd ever been to in her entire life, I think that was the seventh one I'd been to that year. I've been to funerals for old people. Funerals for young people. To funerals for people I knew well and for people I didn't. I've been to funerals where the person's death was expected and to ones where death came suddenly. Christian funerals. Buddhist funerals. Funerals with no religious association. Funerals that were bittersweet because the person was a Christian and sad funerals where the person wasn't. One thing that all funerals have in common though is that they get me thinking about not only death and dying, but also life and living.

This past funeral I was at the man lived a long, long life. My cousins' grandpa lived to be 105 (or...maybe 106...no one is sure when his birthday was). He lived to see two world wars. Survived the Depression. He was alive to see the Wright bothers fly their plane and man land on the moon. He was alive when both the television and blue ray disc were invented.

I thought about all the things that I will have seen in my lifetime. I don't know if I will live to see 105/106 years worth of things, but already I've seen a lot. The iPod, hybrid cars, the birth control patch, the Euro, 9/11, H1N1, and Justin Beiber to name a few things. While these things are significant, I think more narcissistically maybe, I tend to ask not what crazy things have happened in the world during my lifetime, but how has my life been significant. Am I living a life that matters?

Maybe this is lame...No, it is lame, but watching Iron Man reinforced these questions. I finally watched Iron Man all the way through, paying full attention to the movie (YAY! Iron Man 2 this Thursday!). The whole movie is about getting the chance to live a life that matters, making an impact on the world.

There's that one scene toward the beginning of the movie when Tony Stark is in the first suit that he built and is escaping from the Ten Rings and his new friend, Yinsen, is dying and he tells Stark, "Don't waste it. Don't waste your life." Right after he said that immediately I started thinking Piper. "Don't waste your life."

Similarly to Iron Man, Christians get a "second chance". We've been redeemed to live lives that matter for God's glory. We are allowed to be part of the process of saving souls! How much greater is that than stopping some rebel terror group that is using the weapons you invented? 

I think, a lot of times I don't see it as that great. While I would spend energy cheering Iron Man on as he kills some bad guys, I often forget to spend my time and energy in prayer for the missionaries I know. And while I become anxious and excited as a fictitious superhero goes to confront the antagonist, I become scared and timid and I shy away from opportunities to share the Gospel. How is it that defeating the Ten Rings has become more relevant than fighting for people's souls???

Death is guaranteed. I don't know when it will come, but it will. I might live to be 105 too or maybe I will not even see tomorrow morning. When I am dead it wont matter how much money I made (if I died tonight it really would not matter) or what career I had, who I married, if I even got married. It's not going to matter if people thought highly of me or if I was significant according to the world's standards. At the end we go, "sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything." I will take nothing from this world with me to the next. What will matter is if I lived a life that was spent on the gospel. 

There is no fear in spending and being spent for Christ because we know that we are like Iron Man (sort of...) in that we cannot be defeated either. Like Whitfield said, "We are immortal until our work on earth is done."  

"Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him." John 12: 24-26