It reminds me of another favorite quote:
"Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still inside them."
- Henry David Thoreau
The tragedy, all too often, is that many people take the life they've been given...and do nothing with it. The song stays trapped inside them - never sung and, thus, never heard.
Someone I know who broke out of the pull of inertia to sing his song boldly and gracefully is likely someone you've not met. His name is Zhya Jacobs, a friend of mine from Mumbai, India, who I had the pleasure of knowing for 6 months before his untimely death at the age of 34 this past November.
To all who knew him, he was a passionate man, one who lived his life with zeal, with grace and from a place of great love and care. The impact of this life, even in the days after his drowning, was reflected clearly in the incredible outpouring of sorrow and gratitude that followed. Sorrow because many (can you say multitudes?!) were feeling the profound loss of a good man. But, on the other side, gratitude - for having had him in our lives for however long we had been blessed to have him. This is because Zhya, in his short time here, had lived. And lived fully. And this life clearly touched others.
He would be the first to tell you - and tell you quite insistently with a large smile on his face - that this had everything to do with JESUS. See, Zhya was a whole-hearted student of JESUS - meaning that he not only believed in the truth of the Scriptures and in the effect of JESUS' life, death and resurrection, but that he sought to live in their reality. To love others, even his "enemies." To reach out to the marginalized and poor. To live in purity of mind and body. And to seek GOD above all else. Yes, he was a man who walked the talk, and was growing in that, day by day.
But even here, Zhya would tell you that it had nothing to do with him. Rather, he would tell you quite plainly that he had met GOD. That he had encountered the CREATOR of all that exists and had found in HIM a love beyond measure. And a reason for living: to share this love generously with everyone he came into contact with. And, thus, to live for a greater purpose than himself.
I believe that it's THIS that people were responding to when Zhya passed - the very life of GOD inhabiting a man who was surrendered to HIM. A life transformed by an ongoing relationship with this GOD - to be all that GOD had made him to be. A bright light shining in a dark world.
Ultimately, though, Zhya would tell you that all of this is available to you too. That you don't have to settle for less. That you don't have to live a life of quiet desperation. But, rather, that you can live fully in the life that GOD has created you to live. Here. And now.
May you come to do that just as he did.
::
"We shine like stars in the summer night, we'll shine like stars in the winter night,
one heart, one hope, one love..."
With Or Without You | U2
