Today's passage is Acts 20:28-38.
Paul tells the Ephesians to watch over themselves and those the Holy Spirit has put them in charge of. He warns of the attacks of false teachers and distorters of the truth they have received. He reminds them that he never took anything from anyone but always paid his own way and that of his companions with the work of his hands. He quotes Jesus about giving being more blessed than receiving. Everyone cried as they bid Paul farewell because he had said that he'd never see them again.
Goodbye is an interesting word in English. It was originally an expression: "God be with you". The "you" was originally "ye".
Over the centuries it got shortened to a single word.
Goodbye in French and Spanish--"Go to God"--has the same sense as the English. So Paul and the Ephesians saying goodbye to each other has a special meaning of wishing God to be with those they are leaving.
When I say Goodbye to anyone, I fully expect to see them again.
I do wish them to go with God until I see them later.
I wish that because if I don't happen to see them, if I or they are killed or die before we meet again, then I have wished them well in the best possible way.
Only once did I say Goodbye to someone that I knew I would never see again on this earth, and that was my father.
He was dying of cancer in the hospital in Canada and I had to leave to return to my job in the States.
Oh, there were lots of tears in that farewell!
I told him I loved him and asked his forgiveness of my many sins against him: my lack of respect, my criticism, my lack of caring and my selfish expectation that he would always help me out despite my undeserving.
Those are heavy sins I continue to repent of.
The last thing I did for my dad was to help him to the toilet because he was too weak to stand by himself and he didn't want to use a bedpan.
He didn't quite make it to the toilet before some of his excrement dropped out on the floor.
I picked it after I got him to the toilet.
Picking up my dad's poop was a big lesson for me because it reminded me of how often he picked up the messes I made, not just as a child but as a teenager and young man.
If he'd been alive when my life collapsed and I lost my job and my hope of the future and had to live in the YMCA, he would've come and gotten me.
That was the kind of guy he was.
In a way, it was good he died when he did, just before my world fell apart, so that he couldn't pick up the pieces for me.
I had to suffer on my own and find God, my heavenly father, to pick up the pieces. What a great mercy that has been!
I said Goodby to my dad and cried a lot.
But I know he truly is with God in heaven.
The funny thing is that I will see him again one day, but the many people I say Goodbye to these days I may never see again because they don't believe in God.
I realize I need to remind them that God is there, just as I did today in the swimming pool when I talked to a Korean professor during our rest time.
He said he was moving and soon wouldn't be coming anymore to our swim time.
I told him how God guided me.
Today's passage reminds me strongly that I, too, need to warn those God puts in my path.
You just don't know how much time you have to receive the Word and be guided by it.
Lord, let me say Goodbye with sincerity, praying that all those I part from will indeed go with you and go to you. Let me be less cowardly when speaking to the people you put beside me. Let me feel more keenly the shortness of the time before we die so that I can speak your words of invitation and love.
