"I wanna live my life just like you did, and make the most of my time just like you did, and I wanna make my home up in the sky just like you did..."
"Save A Place For Me" by Matthew West from the album, Something To Say

My church family was rocked a few months back at the passing of a ten-year-old boy. This little boy, the son of one of the leaders in our church, had been diagnosed with cancer in October of 2009, but his parents hadn’t told many people about it. So when the announcement of his passing came, early one Sunday morning, you can imagine how shocked we all were.

I had never met this boy personally, although I’d seen him around church with his brothers and a few of his friends. I knew his mom and dad a little, but it wasn’t until he was gone that I realized that I’d never even spoken with him--ever. One of the things I love about the family of God, though, is that, no matter if we’ve met or not, we are still a family. What affects one, affects another.

The memorial service for the little boy was held at our church a couple of days later, and my family and I attended. If you were there on that day, I have a feeling that you would agree with me when I say that this was the most untraditional memorial service we’d ever seen. The church was nearly full, and we started off the service with worship. During the course of the afternoon, various family members and friends came up and spoke about what it meant to know this little boy and how he, at only ten years of age, had already changed so many lives.

One of the stories that hit me the hardest was the story of another little boy who was a close friend of the boy that died. His father came on stage and spoke on what he had meant to him and his family. You see, this little boy, back when he was around preschool age, was going through a period of severe shyness. VERY severe. This boy was having difficulty even talking to other people, and his parents were praying about possibly getting him some sort of help for this. That all changed the day he met this outgoing and friendly little boy. The two became the best of friends. He stayed patient with the shy boy while he broke out of his awkward stage and even introduced him to a group of guys whom he still hangs out with to this day.

This little boy is definitely not the same shy person anymore. He even came on stage, at one point during the service, and spoke about how this friend was one of the best he’d ever had. This raw honesty, from a childlike heart, struck everyone in the room. As the boy’s father went on speaking on stage that day, he said something that struck my heart: “God used this boy to save my son’s life.”

During the service, as I heard person after person share their stories about knowing him, the song “Save A Place For Me,” by Matthew West, kept spinning in my head. It was on a constant loop in my mind. The one line that jumped out at me was the bridge, which says, “I wanna live my life just like you did, and make the most of my time just like you did, and I wanna make my home up in the sky just like you did.”

Even though months have passed, and life has moved on in a sense, the stories that were shared about this boy that day won’t leave my mind. Not a day goes by when I don’t think of something someone said during the memorial service. This boy was only ten-years-old and, while it might be logical or even normal for me to dwell on the life he didn’t live, I just can’t do that. All I can think about is what this boy DID do in his ten years.

The bible says that we are Christ’s ambassadors, making God’s plea as if it were through us (2 Corinthians 5:20). This is a simple truth that is overlooked far too often in the church, but it is also a simple truth one little boy understood and grasped wholeheartedly. He was God’s ambassador, especially when he was offering a hand of kindness to another boy who possibly didn’t understand what a friend was. At a young age, he was already displaying the love of Jesus Christ in his life; he became a friend to the friendless and showed great and selfless love toward another human being.

I think of how he did this and yet how difficult it is for grown men and women to do the same. We walk by people every day. Most of them probably look like they are in good shape, even though they may be facing some issues. Others are silently screaming for someone--anyone--to show them some sort of love. They are desperate. Do we care? Do we stop and show them what real love is through our example? Are we being Christ’s ambassadors? Or do we just walk by and ignore them, pretending everything is going to be okay if we just leave them alone?

There is a difference between childlike faith and childish faith. Childish faith will selfishly go about its own life, not caring about others around it. Childlike faith will see the truth and want to make a difference. It’s easy for children to speak their minds, even when parents or others don’t want to hear it. That’s where the beauty lies. Kids understand that there are no invisible walls dividing people or making one person better than another. To kids, all people are people. They all matter. What if we all acted like that? What if we all moved from childish faith to childlike faith, making God’s plea as if it were through us and showing love to all people, unafraid to share the truth with them?

This powerful song by Matthew West goes on to say, later on in the bridge, “Until I get there, save a place for me.” Some people wait until they get a bad doctor’s report before they decide to start living—as if imminent death gives them permission to finally live. That should not be the case. You see, this little boy didn’t wait until someone gave him permission to live. He lived his life while he had it, and he wasn’t going to wait for someone to tell him to start. We CANNOT wait until it is too late for us to start living the life that God has given us. We need to live now and not put our lives on some shelf, waiting to use them when we feel the time is right. God has given us life now. He wants us to live life incredibly—-NOW-—before we get to heaven, the place where we will ultimately live eternally.

I want everyone reading this to take a good look at their own life. Are there areas where you’re not giving it your all? Are there areas where you are not allowing God to use you? Don’t wait. Start living life now. Become the person you were created to be, and see God reveal Himself in you and through you. Become the kind of person that someone can look back on one day and honestly say, “God used them to change my life.”