Dear Mt. Olive family and friends,

But for me, there’s something very special about this snapshot. It’s not what’s in the photo. It’s what is not in the photo.

Thirty-two years ago, I worked in Glacier National Park. I spent a glorious summer managing a cute little gas station up on the knoll, right behind Many Glacier Hotel. I was also the sole employee, but I had plenty of business and lots of company!

It was a fabulous summer filled with the most wonderful memories. There could be no finer way to enjoy a summer and to get paid besides! What a life!

What is not in this recent vacation photograph is that picturesque little filling station. It should be there! It has to be there! It used to be there! It would always be there! But all that remains today is a slight indentation in the ground. No one else looking at the picture would ever know…

I asked a few employees who had worked in the park for several summers about the missing gas station, but not a single person even remembered it being there. All I got were blank stares and patronizing looks.

As I pondered that desolate little spot where once my tiny service station stood, it occurred to me that this is much more than a picture of a missing building. This is a panoramic view of life.

A few fortunate folks may leave a mark where they have walked or worked, but the overwhelming majority of us, and what we have said and done, will be not long remembered, but soon forgotten. Placards and plaques may announce, "George Washington slept here," and a road sign alert us to the fact that "Lewis & Clark camped here," but no one could care less if Carl Henkel worked here! The disconcerting reality is that most of us will be forgotten by the generation that follows us. "Only one life, t’will soon be past…"

As I paused there on the parcel of land where my modest station once stood, that which I had often thought and frequently spoken suddenly became incredibly real: "Only what’s done for Christ will last."

Leaving one’s mark on a piece of soil soon becomes meaningless. Leaving Christ’s mark on another human heart will never stop blessing. Time will quickly forget our meanderings through life, but those with whom we have shared the love of Jesus will live forever in glory.

Solomon looked back at all the things he had done, all the money he had made, and all the possessions he had accumulated, and declared it all "meaningless." He regarded his life of indulgence and pleasure as nothing but wasted time on earth. Yet God graciously allowed him the honor of touching human hearts until the end of time through his divinely inspired Proverbs.

Do you hope to be remembered beyond the grave? Frankly, that is not of any great consequence. What is important is that we leave a mark in the name of Jesus Christ who has left His mark on us. What is vital is that we share the life of Jesus with family, friends, and neighbors now, so that His love may live in them into the future. What is important is that we share now with others the mark of His bloodstained cross, so that they may wear, into eternity, the glorious crown of His righteousness.

I dare say, no one will ever remember your conversations about the weather or about the Twins or about the summer you worked in a gas station. What they will remember is the love of Jesus they see in you and the life of Jesus they learn from you. What they will remember are the times you talked to them about your faith in Jesus and shared with them His invitation to believe. That, dear friends, will last all the way into heaven.

I plan to keep that special vacation photo on my desk for a long, long time. It’ll just be another pretty picture to others. But to me, it will serve as a constant reminder of how unmistakably true it is, that: