This Post Isn't Easy




It's difficult to think about whether your grandfather, or someone else dear, will be there, at home in Heaven — or whether a family patriarch who you've hoped for, is already there: at home in the Spirit, in Jesus.

It can be uneasy to wonder weather he ever realized the hope in people like me.

Did he learn to cherish that children and grandchildren were finding life in Jesus, and that, having found that life, children and grandchildren were redeemed from both his and our own sins?

Did the joy of our redemption in Jesus ever show itself clearly to him? Did he understand we didn't need to be changed in flesh; that when Jesus walked among us, people looked upon a Savior who was ugly; and that Jesus' loving way was sufficient enough, in our own lives, to give us each — each unique child — the beauty of simply believing in Him?

Did he have hope, in Jesus, for a child like me? Did he believe in that old saying, "God don't make junk"?

Did he understand I was whole, complete, redeemed, justified, made right in the Lord?

And what if that patriarch were a man like Muhammad Ali? What is a child of God to wonder about his appointment in Heaven?

His daughter Rasheda said that, while his health declined, she assured him that his children would well represent being Muslim, that she understood the peace in being a true Muslim.

But did he possibly want to say there's peace in knowing Jesus, that he just never wanted Muslims to be misunderstood, and that, after a while, he wanted to be a bridge for Muslims, to Jesus?

I know I'm not the only one who has wrestled with questions like this?

One Christian writer thought men like Papa Ali "made a choice to reject the Gospel." But did he?

The writer says, "We all pray for Ali’s death-bed conversion to Jesus, but all we’ll know on this side of eternity was his rejection of Jesus’ plan for salvation."

But the cry of my heart says,  is that really all we know? Can't we have faith for a different summary?



Could it be that Mr. Ali ultimately didn't reject Jesus, even if he found fault with hypocrisy, or willful unrepentanc, among many Christians? In this age when more Muslims have searched for purpose, could it be that Mr. Ali privately grew to understand glorying in sin isn't the Gospel, that misrepresentations of the Gospel are what we shouldn't accept, and that the Gospel Himself is good?


When Mr. Ali's bodily remains were finally surrendered, years ago, Franklin Graham, son of the Reverend Billy Graham, tweeted: "My father @BillyGraham hoped Ali would give his life to Christ. I’ve wondered if he trusted Him before slipping to eternity. I sure hope so."

Hope really can spring eternal, you know. And I believe hopefulness, for him, was there all along.

It's with hope that I feel he didn't reject the Gospel, even if he taught his family the Muslim way of doing things to earn one's way to Heaven.

It's with hope that I feel he quietly grew to understand and adore Jesus, before his thought-life gave way to the gray of Parkinson's.

Even if something took hold of his capacity to speak his true heart in those final years, I refuse to think he rejected Jesus. I hope he quietly tried to follow the One who said
“If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself nd take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and for the gospel will save it. What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? If anyone is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in His Father’s glory ... .”
No matter how things seemed, or no matter how his thoughts and speech may have strayed, only Heaven knows the soul. And I believe God did reach in and carry his spirit homeward.

The Bible says, "Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear." (Isaiah 59:1)


“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way as to take the prize. Everyone who competes in the games trains with strict discipline. They do it for a crown that is perishable, but we do it for a crown that is imperishable. Therefore I do not run aimlessly; I do not fight like I am beating the air. No, I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified."

1 Corinthians 9:24-27

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