Old Friends, Hope, & Jesus

There’s a song written by Bill and Gloria Gaither that comes to mind as I reflect on the loss of several of our old friends in recent days:

Old friends, after all of these years,just old friends, through the laughter and tears,

old friends, what a find, what a priceless treasure.

Old friends, like a rare piece of gold, my old friends, make it great to grow old,

old friends, through it all I will hold, to old friends.

Now God must have known, that some days on our own, we would lose our will to go on,

and that’s why he sent friends like you along.

Old friends, yes you’ve always been there, my old friends, we’ve had more than our share,

old friends, I’m a rich millionaire, in old friends.

A phone call, a letter, or a pat on the back, or hey, I just dropped by to say, a hand when we’re down,

a loan when we just couldn’t pay.

A song or a story a rose from the florist, a little note that you just happened to send,

out of the blue, just to tell me, that you’re still my friend.

Old friends, after all of these years, just old friends, through the laughter and tears old friends,

what a find, what a priceless treasure.

Old friends, yes, you’ve always been there, my old friends we’ve had much more than our share,

old friends, we are all millionaires, in old friends.

Bill Bush, Dale Moss and now Lloyd Tate. Once again these occasions serve to remind us of the brevity of life. The Bible pictures life in Psalm 39:5 and James 4:14 as “a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.” Because this is true, the Psalmist tells us in Psalm 90:12, “So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom,” and the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 5:15 & 16 encourages us to “walk circumspectly; not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.”

In other words we are to use what time we have wisely, eschewing the temporary and embracing the eternal.

We’ll certainly miss our old friends, but we don’t have to sorrow as those who have no hope, because our hope is in Jesus and the resurrection.