Every time I open my “Find My Friends” app, I’m taken aback by the last person that I see on my list:
Dad can see your location
My dad, Max Edward Goins, died September 10, 2023, one year ago today.
Sometimes when I see it, I smile. Sometimes I cry, but always I think, “I believe that Dad CAN see me.”
I think that because of one of my favorite scriptures: Hebrews 12:1-3 “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders, and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. . .”
When I see Dad’s face and the words that say, “Dad can see your location,” I believe that he is in that great cloud of witnesses, and that he can see me. He lived a life of faith just like others mentioned in Hebrews 11, so why shouldn’t he be in that “great cloud.”
Sometimes I can actually picture a throng of people standing at the edge of a huge balcony peering over the edge and watching their family and friends press on in life.
I feel like my dad is in that throng- praying for me, cheering for me, maybe even interceding for me.
I know you have that person, too. A mother, a grandmother, a friend who loved Jesus with his or her whole heart and has gone on before you to the Great Cloud of Witnesses. That person is praying for you to know Jesus, to love Jesus, to follow Jesus, and to obey Him.
And let’s not disappoint them. May we press on just like they did. May we live every single day fully devoted to God; completely full of hope and living by faith. May we obey, resist the sin that so easily entangles us, and run the race marked out for us.
I’m praying that it may be said of all of us, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith,” so we, too, can join that great cloud of witnesses!
michelle perrigo 