Yesterday I attended the celebration service for my friend Biff Hobbs. I knew Biff through meeting him at my former Sunday school class in Thomasville GA. We became friends and after I moved on to establish Honey Lake Church, we remained that way. He read Words for the Day daily and often wrote to me adding his insight.
The Lord called Biff home last week and his friends and family came together to remember him Sunday afternoon. Hundreds and hundreds of people attended and reminisced as speaker after speaker reminded us of his love for the Lord, his personal integrity, and his community service and activity. He was an inspiration to all who knew him and was consumed with encouraging others with his personal testimony and he helped so many people with their walk with the Lord they cannot be numbered.
Live music drifted out over the gathering and several songs were sung including one of the most beautiful I’ve heard with Laura Reid singing Sometimes I cry. It reminded me of Biff in many ways because he lived a life that was often consumed by personal suffering. He first got cancer when he was just 26 years old and agonized terribly with it off and on until his death at 63. His body was ravaged by numerous surgeries, chemo treatments, and radiation.
The service was conducted outside at a park named after his beautiful daughter Holly. She was an All-American softball player and an All-American young lady who loved the Lord and her family who tragically died in a car crash and in the process devastated Biff. There is no doubt that “sometimes he cried”, but I can bear personal witness that miraculously most of the time he just praised God.
Biff and I had a mutual bond in our respective struggles to overcome adversity. He did it the right way and I did it the wrong way. Biff drew closer to the Lord as he suffered while I initially turned to drugs, alcohol, and violence. When I had finally been broken down to a point where I had nowhere to look but up, I finally surrendered to the Lord and ultimately found the peace that Biff enjoyed. It was as though we knew without speaking what it is like to go through the worst this world can conjure up and yet find that indescribable peace of God in the midst of it. It was a camaraderie founded in tragedy that was washed away by the blood of Christ.
So now Biff is with Jesus and has reunited with Holly and all of the others who Christ called before him. He is walking on streets of gold and has been surrounded with the glorious presence of the Lord and is knowing incomprehensible joy never to know pain or suffering again. I envy him in many respects but know I still have work to do and one day I’ll get the call too.
One of the speakers Coach Mike said that: “Without adversity there can be no greatness”. I thought about that on the drive home yesterday and Coach is right. Greatness is spawned out of adversity if we allow it. (If you are suffering today I would think about this some today.)
So Biff fought the good fight and I am dead certain that the Lord said: “Well done my good and faithful servant, come on in and let’s eat together”.
Enjoy eternity my brother I can’t wait to catch up again!
Rev. 21:4
He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.”
November 23, 2015 – Click here to listen