I’ll start off today’s editorial by the reporting of a catastrophic event occurring in my life this past Monday evening. Now I’ll admit that “catastrophic” is in the eye of the beholder, but in my eye, that’s the appropriate description. It was this “catastrophic” occurrence that brought a word to my mind that will serve as our topic for this lesson. In the following recitation of “the event” I’ll use the “word” thereby giving you a clue to our lesson topic.
The event. Perhaps
I should say “main event” because it has sure occupied most of my thinking and
feeling since it occurred, but anyway here’s what happened. My wife and I
had taken care of some business in a large shopping center and decided to check
out a new store located therein.
As I walked around the
back of my vehicle, I failed to notice a “speed bump” strategically located to
slow people down. It certainly slowed me down as I tripped over it,
almost recovering my balance but then fell crashing onto the asphalt, very
ungracefully I might add. Not only was my dignity injured, so was the
left side of my body. Luckily, nothing was broken, but I’ve got some
truly colorful bruises adorning certain areas of me.
Every minute of time
since 6:21 PM Monday night (watch broke in fall) the pain reminds me of my
failure to pay attention to important things. Such as what’s around me
that can cause me harm. Because, as we get older, like Solomon told us in
Ecclesiastes 12, the “keepers”
of my “house”
(body) don’t work as good as when I was younger, so I really need to pay closer
attention to potentially dangerous situations.
OK, have you figured out
which word in my event narrative might be our “topic word?” If you
guessed the word “almost” you hit the nail on the head. Yep, “almost” is
our operative word of the day. As in, I almost kept from falling, but I
didn’t. I fell and mighty was the fall of it.
Well, let’s think about
that word “almost” for a few moments. It’s a word that people use in
their vocabulary quite a bit, isn’t it? And, we hear it used in a variety
of ways and I’d like you to consider some of the ways we use it. We hear
someone say, “I almost made the team.” Or, “I almost made a perfect
score.” We might even hear someone say, “I almost took the opportunity
to......” or “I almost won the prize.”
I’d like point out
something here about that word “almost.” In just about every usage of it
is the indication of it having no value. What I’m saying is, that in
“almost” doing something means that we didn’t gain whatever it was that we were
involved in. We never completed it. We just “almost” did something.
It’s my personal feeling
and opinion that we regret the things we didn’t do more so than the things we
did do. The things that we missed out on. And, when you
consider the word “regret” that word doesn’t indicate anything of a positive
nature either. I happen to think that it fits very well with the negative
nature of our topic word, “almost.”
The word “almost” is not
used a whole lot of times in the Bible and probably the most well-known usage
of it is found in Acts 26:28 where Paul, in defending himself before King
Agrippa, is basically preaching him a sermon. In response to that
defense, the King told Paul, “Almost
thou persuadest me to be a Christian.”
Well, what do we see by
King Agrippa’s statement to Paul? In my eyes I see that he came very near
to saving his soul, but not quite getting there. He “almost” won the
prize, but lost. He “almost” made the team, but he didn’t. See what
I mean about the value of “almost?” To Agrippa it had none. He
“almost” had the most valuable thing available to human beings - salvation -
but he might as well have never heard The Word for all the good it did
him.
When one thinks about
it, this lesson on “almost” doing something is also applicable to our earthly
lives. To “almost” complete something usually doesn’t cut it, does
it? It can mean that we might have tried something and failed, but more
likely it means that we gave up. Thus, we gained no benefit by our
efforts.
But value-wise, it’s in
the spiritual realm that we don’t want to “almost” complete a course. We
don’t “almost” want to become a Christian. Or, “almost” be obedient to
the Gospel. Or, in what I consider to be a worse-case scenario, to fail
in the last portion of life’s race to complete the course. To “almost”
make it to the finish line, but drop out of the race.
In Rev. 2:10 we find
these words and thoughts. That we’ll have things happen to us in our
temporal lives that can test our faith. That Satan will put things in our
way, so to speak, that will cause some to weaken and abandon their faith.
But notice how the writer ends that verse: “be
thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.”
I don’t want to “almost”
get that crown, do you? As we close, I’ll cite to you one more place in
the Bible where we find the word “almost” used. I can only say that I
wish that this verse were true last Monday evening.
“But as for me, my feet had almost
stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped.” (Psalm 73:2 - ESV)
Ron Covey
