The fruit of Persistent Labor

If I’d actually owned anything besides my ’68 Ford Mustang, I surely would have wagered it.

Because when I was twenty-two years old, nothing could have convinced me that I’d someday write a post about the impact my new bride’s doting older brother has had on my life.

He was a burr in my saddle. A nice enough guy for sure. 

Just too nice for me.

Now Denny wasn’t the typical Jesus freak, forever throwing cold water on the party by scolding bad behavior he deemed inappropriate to Biblical teaching. And he was never the kind of guy to get in your face. In fact, I think that’s what made him tolerable for me. I already had plenty of friends and relatives willing and able to admonish my inconsistent Christian lifestyle.

But he kept his eye on me. I’d hooked up with someone very special to him.

He found a way to keep his mouth shut in spite of my hypocritical profession of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. When my penchant for playing live music in a band morphed into full scale idolatry leading to questionable conduct for a married man with children, he didn’t call me up or write me a letter demanding an explanation. When I lost my shirt in more than one business venture, he never sat me down to reprimand me for having been unprepared or lacking perseverance and maturity.

He’d pray for me. I never asked him if he did, nor did he ever mention that he did.

I just knew he did.

For so long, I never looked forward to be around him. It seemed like he never really wanted to have fun. But there was a voice inside me that wouldn’t leave me alone. Something about him made me think that The One who began a good work in me would continue to perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.

I couldn’t ignore the voice. I knew it was there. He knew it too. 

And it used to drive me crazy.

We didn’t know all of his friends. But he had a lot of them. He always had a church family, and they’re the ones he’d usually talk about. Whenever we’d come to visit him, it was usually on a weekend, and it was a foregone assumption that we were expected to accompany him to Sunday morning worship. And I’m ashamed to say, that used to really annoy me.

But he never gave up on me.

I remember one such Sunday morning when I was attempting to defend my right to stay at home. He looked at me and said, “You know, you’re not always supposed to want to go to church, you just do. ’’

And only in the past few years have I grown enough to be able to sit down with other men and encourage one another to persevere in a Godly lifestyle in the spirit of brotherly love. And I’m grateful that one of those few people who weren’t always looking to change the subject included not only my brother-in-law, but my brother in Christ, Denny Watkins.

Like me, he wasn’t without his annoying habits and flaws. I’ll never forget the laughs we all had when my wife bought him a birthday mug labeled “Big Bother.” He never married, but remained steadfast in a lifestyle which attempted to demonstrate, defend and proclaim the good news of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And he was never ashamed to belong to Him.

The untimely death of those we love stir our emotions and our fears, causing us to reflect on the value of those relationships and the impact they had on our lives, hopefully restoring some semblance of that love from a different and perhaps richer perspective.

Now Denny sleeps in Christ, waiting for the day of His return and the raising of the righteous dead.

Good guys really do win in the end.