So, let me tell you about my friend Wes.
The world would most likely define a man like him by what he was not, or what he did not have, which is just one of many reasons why, in the words of that great book of antiquity, Epistle to the Hebrews, it was not worthy of him.
The irony of his physical heart giving out is not lost on any of us who knew him, because his spiritual heart reached out and enveloped just about everyone who crossed his path.
He was not wealthy… unless you consider having pretty much all you ever cared to have “wealthy.”
He was not a captain of industry, but many people, especially his own family, followed him willingly and wanted to learn about leadership from him.
He did not have a graduate degree, but one of his final words was the answer to a Final Jeopardy question (“Italy,” I’m told), because he and June played along with the TV anytime they could. (I’m pretty sure she thought he was feigning sleep so that he could answer it while her attention was elsewhere. Knowing Wes, she might have been right.)
He was not a “gospel preacher;” yet the way he lived told the story of grace and obedience every day I knew him.
He was simultaneously a father and a child for much of his life, both in the physical and spiritual realms; he not only balanced all of those roles, but integrated them with joy and passion.
He hated sin, especially his own; but loved God and loved people because God loves them.
We’re devastated by his passing. So devastated, in fact, that Friday night we’re planning to go to a church building near his home and praise God and encourage each other in song (just one of the things he loved to do) until our voices give out or we blow the roof off.
No, most of the world won’t “get” Wes – but he’d have wanted them to, not for himself, but because you can’t understand a guy like Wes until you’re trying to know God through His Book.
I’ve been a Christian for a long time now, and I’m trying to learn how to be half the man he was.
It's a Post-PC World... But I Was Never PC Anyway 