Now he knows

Yesterday Jason Collins yelled down the hall at work, “George Carlin died today.”  Most of you know how much I love to laugh.  George Carlin (in my opinion) was one of the funniest men of my generation.  I can still remember sitting in Carla Azlin’s living room watching the very first season of Saturday Night Live with host George Carlin.  I had his LP (for those of you who are to young to know that was a large vinyl CD) with the famous, "Seven Words You Can't Say On The Radio" was a comedic hit. He was obviously a deep thinker and a great ability to take little things that were obvious, right-in-front-of-your-face and making you think about them from a comedic angle.

In recent years one of the saddest parts (to me) of his routine was the bitter angry old man part.  There was always a major part of his anger reserved for people who believed in God (he had grown up Catholic).  He was quick to let his bitter feelings about God and religion fly.   And to be honest there were parts of what he said that made me laugh.  But I was always sad because I liked him so much.  The last bit I ever saw him do ended with him saying “If there is a god may he strike me dead.”  Of course when it didn’t happened he said, “See there is no God.”

My first thought when Jason told about George Carlin’s death was a very sad thought - “Well now he knows he was wrong.”  My guess is that all of us know people who are hurt by the church or just choose to not believe but they still have a chance.  One day every person will all stand before God.  At that point how badly the church treated them or how smart they were won’t matter at all.  You and I  must not be deceived into thinking “They will all be okay.”  They won’t .  And one day when we stand before God (even if we are saved ourselves) we will know how wrong we were about friends.  This is our chance.  There are at least 60,000 people right here around us who need to hear.  What are we waiting on?