Our team gathers together for a briefing about twice a month at an off-site location. Today was no different. People had already started arriving from across the state to discuss and prepare for an upcoming event.

Just prior to the briefing start time we get a short e-mail, “There is an all employee conference downtown in 20 minutes.”

That is a very short time frame to alert ‘all employees’ of a conference, plus they know many of us can’t make it because we are off-site.

A few minutes later we get another short e-mail, “Briefing has been canceled.”

It was at that point where phone calls started coming in, and everything changed from a normal day to an unforgeable day. The meeting downtown was to inform everyone that our assistant team leader was found dead today. The details are still unknown, but he was young and in top physical condition.

Today we can mourn, because death is an enemy. God created a world that was ‘very good’ and without sin or death. It was man who disobeyed God and brought physical death into God’s very good creation. But it is God who raises the dead, and provided a way for us to inherit eternal life (1 Corinthians 15:21-28). It is our iniquity that cause us to die, but it is by God’s grace that we receive eternal life without works (Ephesians 2:8-10).

Why would God let someone die who was so young and has done so much good for our community? It is God who gives life to all things (1 Timothy 6:13), and it is God who ordains when the hours of our life will end (Psalm 139:13-16). We have all broken God’s commands, and therefore we all deserve the penalty for sin: death (Romans 6:23). No amount of good works in this life can change the days God has appointed for you. Yet we can find comfort in that God is in control.

If the Lord wills (James 4:13-15) let us continue to teach the glorious gospel, that God requires a repentant heart and faith in the Lord Jesus.