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Good grief, I didn’t expect the onslaught of petty meanspiritedness and assorted darkness over Herman Cain’s death. It’s all over twitter and social media. The underlying root message is, “see, see this is what happens when you’re bad.”  And underneath that message is, Look at me, I’m good, I’m compliant, I’m more virtuous, so death can’t come near me!

burial cemetery countryside cross

Are people really that shallow, lacking heart, and devoid of braincells? Don’t answer that, it’s a rhetorical question and I’m afraid to know the truth. I’m just saying, I live in a world where innocent people who have done nothing wrong are sometimes stricken by terrible tragedies, diseases, and sometimes deaths that leave you just bowed over at the injustice of it all.

Meanwhile, I got several people in my life who are “bad” as in they make all the wrong choices, poison themselves with substances, slam themselves into trees repeatedly, and walk away relatively unscathed. Not all mind you, I’ve been to plenty of funerals, too. I’m just saying sometimes you’ll see drunks kill innocent people in car wrecks and yet walk away from injury themselves. It is so unfair, so tragic, and pretty clear evidence that death is not always a simple reward for poor behavior.

I once wailed to the Lord, “only the good die young, the really rotten people always live to be 110! Wut’s with that?”  You know what He whispered back to me? Make sure you’re one of the rotten people. 

Very funny, but it all makes perfect sense to me after the fact! The Lord knew at the time I wasn’t particularly rotten, so such quips were not wasted on me.  Even Jesus asks, “Why do you call me good?” He is perfect, sin free, but even He points us to the Father.

That perfect, sin free being lives in us. When we ask Jesus into our heart, we are inviting Him in and asking Him to take up residence within us. Our bodies are now a temple, a place for Him to live in. How we treat our own selves, now becomes how we treat Him. We ourselves are also, the least of these, and we house a King within.

Mel Wild taught me the term “Jehovah Sneaky,” which cracks me up because it is so true.  I often do not see Him coming, He surprises me and catches me off guard. Lord, I never knew you! That answer was not at all what I expected.

Our own goodness will not save us from the grave just as Herman Cain’s alleged badness did not send him there. He did not get sick as punishment for questioning government and politics. I am astounded that anyone would traffic in such nonsense.

When I die, I should like to have lots of dancing on my grave.  I do like dancing very much. Please sing and dance. I would also be honored if people would say, now see, serves her right, she met her vile end because she was so rotten. I am chuckling here, but it is my very rottenness that led me to Jesus Christ in the first place, that began a love story I wouldn’t have wanted to miss for the world.

Make sure you’re one of the rotten people. The reward for simply virtue signaling your perpetual goodness tastes something like dust and does not keep death from your door.

anniversary birthday bow box

Also, “to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.” It says that in the Bible. However, it gets even better. One need not be absent from the body to be present with the Lord! We can all rest in His peace right now, right here, and embrace His life and life abundant, life eternal even. He is our resurrected Lord.

I love to say, His presence is the present, in the present.