David Redd, our Brother in Christ, FoodBasket Ministry Leader, Church Board Member, and friend, graduated to heaven two Sunday’s ago. I remember the first time I met David. His wife and sons had started coming to church and I stopped by to introduce myself. He greeted me with the skepticism a preacher often gets when showing up on someone’s doorstep, polite, uncomfortable, and ready for me to leave. He certainly was not going to come to church although Christ and His church were part of David’s past.
A little further down the road of life things were not going well in David’s family and finally fell apart, and guess what, he started coming back to church. Sporadically at first, but slowly he showed up more and more. I prayed with him many times and encouraged him to become involved, and involved he became. He started helping in the FoodBasket Ministry, became a dependable member of that team, and when it needed a new leader he stopped by my office and asked me if he could take a shot at it. That’s like a pastor’s dream, people knocking at the door to ask for deeper involvement, offering themselves for greater responsibilities.
From the time of that knock on my office door to the day David went home to be Jesus, Dave poured himself into the Foodbasket, so much so that I had to tell him to slow down a bit more than once. Under his leadership the FoodBasket expanded to serving hundreds of people twice a month. He was continually on the hunt for more resources, which become a small problem because you have to put all of those stores somewhere. I finally had to tell him that he couldn’t have any more freezers. All the while God blessed him with a tremendous team of dedicated people he loved.
I wondered where David’s FoodBasket passion came from and found out that at one time in his life he was homeless, he knew from personal experience what it meant that someone cared enough to help anyone in need. He also wanted his retirement years to count for something, to be filled with Kingdom work, give testimony to Christ and God’s goodness.
He liked to stop by my office after a distribution day or after bring in a big load of food and share how God provided over and over again, how God answered specific prayers for food supplies, how hordes of people showed up and somehow there was food for all of them. That’s what happens in ministry, you get to see God at work. After hearing him sharing these blessings we would usually pray for both his team and the people the FoodBasket serves, that they would come to know Christ, understand the Gospel, be saved from their sins and God’s judgment, that they would come to believe in Christ, let Him into their lives and experience the saving grace of God and the life-changing power of the Holy Spirit and of the Word of God (the Bible), become part of Jesus’ Church, grow spiritually, and become dedicated servants.
Except for a few snapshots David shared with me, most of the chapters of his entire life I am not familiar with. I do know it wasn’t perfect, had great ups and downs, regrets, hardships, and long stretches where God and Christ did not figure much. What I do know about is his Don Pedro life, the finishing lap of his life. Of a man returning to God and serving Jesus, the church, and our community. Of a man leaving no doubt about where he stood with God, his love for Christ, serving to the end.
Finishing well is a big thing in God’s mind. The Bible is replete with encouragement and warning when it comes to finishing well, to be faithful and dedicated Christ right down to the last step, the final breath. David did that and blessed us as a church and our whole community in doing so. Thank you! David.
David, our brother in Christ, friend, and fellow servant, “His (your) master said to him (you), ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master’” Matthew 25:21 (ESV, parenthesis mine).
To God be all glory.
Pastor Hans
Not everybody is blessed with great physical health, or even mental health. My children seem to have inherited vastly different immune systems. One has diabetes, another has scoliosis, and several battle with allergies. My own family background is loaded with heart disease and mental illness, and these too seem to have been randomly distributed among my brothers and me.Now I certainly did not have anything to do with what I did or did not inherit as to my physical constitution and health, nor do I know what illnesses and accidents the future holds. But I do know that I can chose to live as healthy as I can with what I have been given and what is available to me ( I wonder how health care costs would be affected if the vast majority of us would embrace healthy habits?). For instance I could take up smoking and vastly increase my already high chances for heart problems, as well as a plethora of other ailments such as cancer and emphysema. I also could quit exercising, or stop taking an aspirin a day. I coulddecide to guzzle more soft-drinks, chew, overdo alcohol, and surrender myself to a chunk food diet. Doing any or all of these will affect my health guaranteed, and whatever negatives I have inherited as to my health will be magnified. Conversely I can decide to make healthy choices, be disciplined as to what I put into my body and as to what I do and don’t do and thus improve my health, besides increasing the chances that Susie, besides being my wife, won’t have to be nurse as well. And since God has given you and me both just one body we can serve him more effectively if we take care of it. Of course we can become so obsessed with our health that we worship at the altar of health and youth. God’s Word (the Bible) reminds us that, “Physical training is good, but training for godliness is much better, promising benefits in this life and in the life to come” 1 Timothy 4:8 (NLT). In other words, physical/mental health is important, but never as much as spiritual health.Spiritual health is as impacted as physical health by good habits and taking advantage of what is available. Jesus said a regular intake of God’s Word is as important as food from the refrigerator (
