A Life Well Lived

Mike Krzyzewski is coach of the national champion Duke Blue Devils basketball team. He is known as being meticulous in his pursuit of basketball success. In his book titled, Leading with the Heart, he attributes much of his success to his mother. He writes, “You want to know who my hero is? My hero is my mother. Everything she did was something that she put her own trademark on. Whatever it was, something as simple as making a batch of chocolate chip cookies. When we were a little poorer, she put three chips in every cookie. When we got a little more money, it’s four chips. But if you got a chocolate chip cookie that had only two chocolate chips in you, you knew it wasn’t my mother’s. From that simple lesson I’ve taken the principle that everything we do has our own personal signature on it, so we want to do it the best we possibly can.” That’s a pretty good philosophy. Put your personal stamp on everything you do.  In every worthwhile thing you do, give your very best.

St. Paul put his personal signature on the New Testament and upon the burgeoning young church of his day. Like the coach’s mother, he gave his very best. He held nothing back. St. Paul was under house arrest in Rome when he wrote the words we read today from the epistle to Timothy. He knew that he was soon going to die a martyr’s death. He wanted his young colleague Timothy to know he had no regrets, that he would do it all again. He wanted to let it be known quite clearly that the emperor Nero could not take his life from him; he was willing to give his life up freely for the glory of Christ. So he writes these memorable words: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”

All of us are inspired by people who give their all. We call them saints, heroes, legends. It’s not that they are more intelligent or more talented than we are. They simply gave more than the average person is willing to give. In light of Paul’s writing, it is good to ponder these questions:  How will we be remembered? Whose life will be better because we have been here? When the race is over, what will the Master say about our life?

May you live a life well lived,

Pastor Qualley