Available By Dr. Juan Harrison

My phone told me this morning about the death of a relatively young TV and movie actor at age 48. Passing 80 this year, finishing up my 3-year battle with cancer, I gratefully take my apparently clean bill of health with a grain of salt.  You never know when Mr. C may be sneakily looking to return.

Like a lot of you who have been affected personally or vicariously through a family member or friend, you may have asked “why me?” or “why them?”  The Bible reminds us that the rain falls on the just and the unjust.  Like many of you I’ve wondered in the past why God allowed some seemingly really good person to be taken early in life while there were some perfectly good candidates not contributing much taking up perfectly good space just messing around here on earth.

God says my ways are not your ways.  He also told me not to be judging others.  Still, I can’t help it, frequently asking why He took a younger friend or two early in life.  It’s about then that I think how He had to give up His son at the young age of 33.  No marriage, no kids, no grandkids.  Jesus missed out on all that as did His Father God.  Spiritually Father God and Jesus have a world full of spiritual children to care for.  I’m reminded how God has so far spared me the loss of a child where He wasn’t spared the pain of seeing a child actually suffer and die.  He let me be a parent and grandparent.  He got to be a spiritual father and grandfather for many generations.

I’ve told all of you numerous times that our being left here on earth while younger folks leave us early tells us our purpose or role here on earth is not done yet.  Most of us don’t imagine being used in some great way spiritually, but maybe God has one more person He wants us to share with, one more person in a doctor’s office or a place of business to say or do something to them that may spark an interest or concern about their spiritual future.

In Germany I had a friend stop by my Bachelor Officer Quarters to tell me there was something in my life and he would like to have it.  I don’t think I’ve had the opportunity to do many great things in my life, but that will rate right up there for me.  A few hours later a nurse upstairs took me to the base hospital for a month’s stay.  Timing is everything.  God let me be available to help someone come to know Jesus personally.  I regret I haven’t had the opportunity to have more visits like that in my life.  A girl who proposed to me by mail from Michigan shortly after I landed in Germany before she died from misdiagnosed cancer also included a picture representing a Christ-centered life as she got saved in college.  In our first year of marriage my wife woke me at 2 in the morning to have me to help lead her to Christ.  I write this to say if we’re still here, God’s not through with us.  We just have to be available.

 By Dr. Juan Harrison