Some things in life make us stop and think more deeply than others. Just before writing this column I officiated at a graveside service for the father of one of our members. I have lost count of the number of funerals I have conducted, but for me, this one was a first. The family asked permission to remain graveside until the coffin was lowered and the grave filled.

We stood but a short distance from the open grave as the casket was lowered into the vault, the lid put in place, the grave filled, and the sods of grass tamped down level with the surrounding lawn. There was a sense of finality to the experience, not felt in the quiet, plush surroundings of a funeral home.

Though we knew the answers, the silent rolling green of this hundred-year-old cemetery brought back the questions once again, "What is life all about?" "Why are we here?" "Where are we going?"

During the earlier service I read from Job 14:14 and 19:27, from 1 Corinthians 15, Revelation 21 and elsewhere. Some understood, others stood respectfully and listened.

In the mid 1950s I first saw a rather plain little pamphlet, black stripes running top to bottom, and the simple title, "Why Were You Born?" It contained the answers-answers hidden from generations of our ancestors. Why didn't we understand these simple yet profound truths? Why had we been ensnared by myths and fables about life and death and the hereafter? Our only answer is that God had not chosen to lift the blindness from our eyes until He chose to call us.

For most of us, that call came several years ago. Other truths were added as we studied. Doctrines were learned, prophecies were taught and practices were incorporated into our daily lives. With the passage of time, I can't help but wonder if the answers contained in that little book have been forgotten by some.

Every single human who has ever lived was placed here so he would have an opportunity to one day be a part of the very family of God for all eternity. The time of calling is not the same for all, but the opportunity to be a son of God is.

Why were we made of corruptible flesh, to live a mortal life for "threescore and ten"?

To build character. To choose between right and wrong, just as did Adam and Eve and all who came after. The words of God spoken to Israel in the wilderness speak to the desire of God. "I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live" (Deuteronomy 30:19).

Herbert Armstrong had a way of reminding everyone that he stuck with the trunk of the tree. He also had a way of questioning aloud whether we were getting it. Time has proven sadly that many didn't. My narrower concern is about those who are members of the United Church of God, or readers of New Beginnings. Did we "get it"?

Today's burning issues revolve around how to preach the gospel, governance, end-time prophecy and the nearness of Christ's return. The debate is endless and oftentimes fruitless. As I stood looking across the hushed cemetery at a majestic century-old hardwood tree, whose roots had spread to envelope the nearby graves, I couldn't help but come back to the original question and its relatively few answers.

Regardless of how soon the prophecies of Matthew 24 come to pass, the central admonition to those called in each century since the Olivet Prophecy was uttered is contained in one simple comment, "Blessed is that servant whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing"(Matthew 24:46).

The most rambunctious of the disciples and possibly the most self-willed, following his full conversion, wrote two beautiful books on governance. Not the much-debated issue of governance styles, but the more critical subject of whether we are governable (1 Peter, 2 Peter).

Jesus Christ, while both showing and telling His disciples how to preach the gospel, also reminded them in parable, instruction, exhortation and warning, that unless they lived their calling their preaching was in vain.

Paul, an apostle who described himself as one called out of season, eloquently repeated these same truths. The faith to move mountains, eyes that can see the fulfillment of prophecy and zeal that would die for the cause were all described as useless without the practice of godly love (1 Corinthians 13:2-3).

We now sit between the Holy Days that remind us that we were called, spared the consequences of our sins by the death of Christ and set on a course of righteousness, and the Holy Day that proclaims us the firstfruits of God's family. Don't wait for the sobering setting of a quiet cemetery and a freshly filled grave to revisit the simple question "Why were you born?" Stop and take time to reconsider your commitment to the course God has set before us.