From Dust to Dust

This past week, an employee passed away. His name was Mike and the few conversations I had with him really made me genuinely appreciate him. He was a person you could come to and talk about anything without feeling uncomfortable. He was often playing pool or hanging around with others. One night, Mike and I talked around the pool table for close to an hour. One thing I remember from our conversation that night was how the morale in the kitchen was really low. He told me he was trying to improve things by just smiling at people as they worked. He spoke about the positive effects of something as simple as a smile and how he hoped it would lead to the kitchen being a better place. Mike was a Sue Chef in the kitchen and seemed to care about being a positive leader for his coworkers.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking over the course of this week about life and death. Our lives can end so quickly. Mike was a young man and now he is gone. 

A few of us on the ministry team talked with the Human Resources Manager and decided to hold a memorial service in remembrance of Mike. None of us know whether Mike was a believer or not.

However, he was interested in our Christian ministry and asked how things went. The day before he died he told me the mountain looked gorgeous in the beautiful weather and that, hopefully the weather would great for the worship service tomorrow.

The weather on the day that Mike died was beautiful. 

I put the following together to display at his memorial service…  

In Genesis 1:26 it says,

“So God created mankind in his own image, 
in the image of God he created them; 
male and female he created them.”

These verses say, not only that God created us, but that he created us in his own image. And yet, Genesis 2:7 says, 

“The LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground”

This verse says we are made from dust of the ground; cheap, easy to find dust lying on the ground. This brings to mind the song by the band Kansas, Dust in the Wind.                         

“All we are is dust in the wind.”

Scientists have analyzed the chemical components of the body to determine what elements could theoretically be extracted and what their current monetary value might be. The answer some say is as little as 1 dollar. The value of a person’s body based solely on its components is only one hundred pennies.

From dust we were created and, in Psalms 90, Moses talks with God about death, saying:

“You [God] turn people back to dust, 
   saying, “Return to dust, you mortals.”

From dust God made us and, when we die, God tells us to return to dust.

It can be depressing to think about ourselves as nothing more than dust. We were created from dust and we will return to dust. Yet, somewhere in between coming from dust and returning to dust, there is this amazing thing called life.

There are times when our breath is taken away by moments of sheer beauty as well as moments of sadness. There are tears cried in joy as well as in pain. There is laughter and there is sorrow.

For a limited time only, we all possess the breath of life, given as a gift from God. 

Later, in Psalms 90, Moses says,

“Teach us to number our days, 
   that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”

Currently, it is popular to glean wisdom from the knowledge of our short lives and say, like many current bands and singers are saying, we must live like we are dying. To live everyday like it could be our last.

If you ask a person what they would do if they knew they only had a month to live, they would probably tell you they would go skydiving, or they would finally go see the places they’ve always wanted to see, or they would profess their love those around them. 

God reminds us with the death of someone near to us like Mike that our lives are fragile and short. The breath of life can be snatched from us and we will return to the dust of the ground in an instant.

If we are to live like we are dying, we should spend today (the only day we might have left) to think about our life and what happens after we die. Will we have life for eternity or life for a short time only before we turn to dust?

Romans 6:23 says, 

“For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Accepting Jesus as Lord is like accepting a gift from God. It is the only way to eternal life. We must then repent from our sins. Otherwise, the wages of our sins, no matter how small or few they are, is death.