Challenged by a Divine Encounter
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other command greater than these.”
Mark 12:30-31 CSB
Have you ever been impacted so deeply by someone that you had only met once or twice in your life? You barely knew them, but you feel like your life will be forever changed because of their path crossing with yours. This chance encounter, orchestrated by only God himself, in which He placed this person in your life could have possibly been through a family member or a friend, or by some random way that you can’t explain with anything other than a “But God” response. However, when God places someone like this in my life, I can’t help but pause a moment and reflect.
God allowed a divine encounter like this to happen to me recently. Brad Nall and his wife Haley have impacted my life in ways beyond comprehension without even realizing it. Brad is the brother of my sister-in-love. I met Brad once at my brother, Caleb, and Stacy's (my sister-in-love) wedding, and later met Brad and his wife Haley again at my niece’s birthday party several years ago. I didn’t know then just how much Brad would influence my life.
This past weekend I attended Brad’s funeral. Brad fought a courageous battle with Leukemia during the last two and half years of his life. I remember when we first heard the news of his diagnosis. I put Brad and his family on countless prayer lists including my own. I prayed fervently that God would heal Brad from this terrible disease, and God answered that prayer, just not in the way I had hoped He would.
As I sat there at Brad’s funeral with a cascade of tears flowing down my cheeks, watching the slide show of pictures of his life and listening to several family and friends speak about Brad’s character and the life he lived, I sat there humbled and honored. I was humbled by who Brad was and honored to have known him in my own little way.
Testimony after testimony was shared of how Brad touched the lives of so many people in his kind, loving, gentle, and selfless ways. These testimonies weren’t just of the life Brad had before cancer invaded his body. Brad continued to be the same person before his diagnosis and after his diagnosis. Countless medical professionals spoke of how positive Brad always would be, even on his toughest and roughest days, and how he would often show kindness and love by caring more about them than of himself.
As their Pastor continued to speak about Brad’s testimony, he said something that really challenged me and I pray that it challenges you as well. See, Brad wasn’t perfect but he realized something that I often forget about. Brad didn’t live his life only focusing on the small, insignificant things that won’t make any difference one hundred years from now. Brad chose to live his life focused on the bigger picture – the things that do have an eternal impact.
As I sit and reflect on Brad’s life – I’m reminded of our key verse that says, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is to love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other command greater than these.” Mark 12:30-31 CSB
Brad’s testimony can be summed up in this way - that he lived out the greatest two commandments, which are to love God and to love others. Those who knew Brad deeply can testify that he loved his Savior with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength, and from the overflow of his relationship with God, he loved others selflessly with the love of God that flowed through him.
I’m challenged by Brad and his unfailing testimony. Even when life wasn’t what he would have asked for, Brad never wavered. He continued to love God fervently and love others the same. He didn’t just talk a good talk – Brad lived it and walked it with a grace that can only come from God.
Sweet friend, that’s how I want to live. Brad was real. And his “real” challenges my “real.” What about you? Do you often struggle with seeing the bigger picture? Do you find it challenging to love God when life doesn’t make sense? And what about the struggle to love people when they act unlovable? I must confess, sometimes I do.
You see, Brad’s testimony reminds me of what it takes to live an ignited walk with Jesus. Sometimes we make it harder than it has to be. We get tangled up in the forest of “small things” in life that don’t matter eternally and fail to focus on the bigger picture.
So, you might be wondering, “What exactly makes up the bigger picture in life?” It’s living with a kingdom perspective and fleshing out (or living out) a kingdom agenda. When God wrote out the Ten Commandments and gave them to Moses and the rest of the people in Exodus 20, He was essentially giving them a picture of the cross. The first half of the commandments are about loving God, and the rest are about loving people – which is a perfect visual of Jesus and how He lived His life. There is much more in God’s word that discusses how we should live and conduct ourselves, but it can all be summed up like this, Love God and Love others – these two commands are the greatest out of them all.
This is how Brad lived and how we should live. It’s how I want to live. What an awesome way to live and such an amazing legacy to leave!
Heavenly Father:
Thank you for allowing my path to cross with Brad and Haley. Thank you for Brad’s amazing testimony and legacy of how he loved you and loved others. I am honored that I was able to pray for him and his family. God, I am heartbroken that Brad’s healing didn’t take place on this side of Heaven, but I praise you for how you walked and carried Brad and his family during his journey with cancer, and I praise you that Brad is completely healed now with no more pain and suffering. You are always a good, good Father even when I don’t understand the heartbreak of the “how’s” and the “why’s of life. Help me to live my life with a kingdom perspective and agenda as Brad did. I want to love you more and more each day. I want your love to pour out and overflow to those around me. I love you! In Jesus name, Amen.
Dig Deeper:
“Now these three remain: faith, hope, and love – but the greatest of these is love.”
1 Corinthians 13:13 CSB
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” Galatians 5:22 CSB
Reflection:
We are writing our legacy each and every day – what kind of legacy are you leaving?
What can you do today to shift to a kingdom viewpoint?