Ryan, we'll see you soon...

Perhaps you had met Ryan. You would remember him if you had. He had an inquisitive way of engaging people. He leaned into you when he listened; a slight grin that let you know he was really listening to what you said, and had something ready to say back. Clever, quick, funny. One of those guys that you make a note of in the back of your mind, "Ryan's going places."

And he threw it all away. For some people in Africa whose names I'll never know. He threw it all away for them on a dark highway between Blantyre and Lilongwe. And now, if you add up the columns it doesn't make any sense. His sweet wife and three daughters, lost without lover and dad, facing a future of uncertainties. The bleak trip back across the Atlantic. The pain which has no destination. We weep for the loss. We weep for the unrealized future. We weep for a leader who never got his chance.

He was delivering corn. Corn to those unnamed Africans who with grateful hands took the corn so their children could live, so mother's milk could flow, so the family could survive another month. But on the trip home, cars went out of control and metal struck metal and some of the fragile bodies didn't survive. One of them was Ryan's. So you could argue he didn't throw it all away, it was snatched from him. He certainly did not INTEND this ending, this way.

But he had made decisions to follow Jesus that allowed him to be in that place, so his life could have meaning, and it did. It does.

Yesterday was the funeral, the saying goodbye to his body...until the general resurrection. We'll see you soon, my friend.

We all throw it all away for something, don't we. Ryan chose well. He risked wisely. He threw it all away for his African friends. But that doesn't really capture it...it goes beyond Africa; he threw it all away at the cross of obedience.

Of course he had hoped to live to be an old man and rock his grandchildren to sleep: but that's a lesser privilege. A lesser privilege than following the Christ on the path to which He invites us.

Death is not the enemy of the Christ-follower. If He taught us anything He taught us that. A life poorly lived is the enemy of the Christ-follower. Ryan understood, he made the right decisions. Well done, Ryan.

In fact, he did turn out to be a leader - he leads us down the path of sacrifice, Ryan laid down his life for his friends. And there is no greater love.

Makes you think, doesn't it? What are you throwing yours away for? If it's something small, then I weep not for Ryan, but for you. Throw your life hard, throw it straight, but throw it. No one can take from you that which you've given away.