The Pastor’s Piece – Pastor Kevin Cernek, FCFI Chaplain

September 27, 2026

By the time I transferred to Bible college, my wife and I were already married. Not long after we arrived, we met a couple named Jim and Frieda, and we immediately hit it off. Because we were married, we lived off campus, and we did many of the things married couples do while going to college and working. Most of our adventures happened on weekends or in the hours between school and work.

Jim owned a VW Beetle that he had transformed into a dune buggy – complete with a high suspension, big tires, and a loud exhaust sticking out the back. That little Baja Bug was a lot of fun when we went off-roading in the desert.

We also had friends from back home who were retired and loved to travel. On one flight from somewhere to Chicago, they met a man on the plane and immediately struck up a friendship with him. He was what you might call a high roller. He dressed in fancy clothes and wore expensive jewelry. Among other business adventures, he owned a pawn shop in Arizona. When they landed in Chicago, the man discovered that his connecting flight to New York had been canceled because of the weather. He wouldn’t be able to leave until the following afternoon.

Our friends lived way out in the country in rural Wisconsin. They were some of the nicest people you could ever meet, and they had a remarkable ability to trust people. So rather than see their new acquaintance spend the night in a hotel, they invited him to come home with them. The man readily accepted, rented a car, and the three of them made the three-hour drive to their home in the country. Some might consider that a bit risky, but, as the saying goes, all’s well that ends well.

The next morning, before he left, he said, “Anytime you’re in Phoenix, look me up.” They took him seriously, because a few years later, our friends asked if they could come to Arizona and stay with us for a few days. They told us not to worry about picking them up at the airport. Their pawn-shop friend was taking care of their transportation while they were in town. They told us what time to expect them.

When they arrived, we looked out the window and saw a long, black, stretched limousine in our driveway. When we went outside, our friends jumped out. They explained that their high-roller pawn-shop owner friend also owned a limousine company. He had a dozen limousines in service, and while our friends were in Arizona, one of those limousines – and its driver – was at their disposal.

Wanting to share the fun with our friends, we invited Jim and Frieda to join us on our adventures. So every chance we had, we climbed into that long black limousine and went exploring around the city. It was quite an experience for a couple of Bible college students and their wives. One of the places we visited was the man’s pawn shop downtown. It was amazing what was in there –  jewelry, books, games, and guns – lots and lots of guns of every year, make and model. I suppose when people need quick cash, one of the things they are willing to pawn is a firearm. We oohed and awed over everything on display. Then the owner took us next door into a warehouse. Inside were dozens upon dozens of vintage cars of all makes and models. I’ve always been fascinated by old cars, especially automobiles from the 1920s and 30s. I love the stories behind them – the bootlegging days, the characters who drove them, and the history that surrounded them. I could have stayed in that warehouse for days.

But looking back, the pawn-shop owner isn’t really the main character in this story. Jim is. After we graduated from Bible college, Jim and I went our separate ways. Life took us in different directions, and eventually we completely lost touch. Years went by. Even with the arrival of the Internet and social media, we never reconnected. But Jim crossed my mind from time to time.

He had a magnanimous personality. He could find humor in everything. Then, just the other day, I saw an old VW Beetle on the road – a Love Bug from the same era as Jim’s dune buggy. And suddenly, I was back in the desert. I thought about Jim and Frieda and those days in Bible college and those crazy adventures in that limousine. So I looked them up on the Internet. That’s when I found Jim’s obituary. It was from the year 2000. Jim had died twenty-six years ago. He was only 39 years old. He and Frieda had three sons. Frieda eventually remarried.

I have to admit, discovering that obituary was difficult to process. All this time Jim was still alive and well in my mind. Then, in the space of a few minutes, I discovered that the friend I had been carrying in my memories had actually been gone for twenty-six years. It’s a strange kind of grief. I’m not grieving the loss of someone I had been talking to every week. I’m grieving the loss of someone who had a positive impact on my life a long time ago. And I’ve found myself thinking about all that Jim missed. He never saw the world we live in today. He never experienced the Internet or social media. He never saw the changes that have taken place in the world over these past twenty-six years.

And then I began to think about how quickly a life passes. Jim was only 39. Twenty-six years have passed since his death, and yet when I saw that Beetle on the road, it was as though I had been transported right back to those days. It reminded me of something the Bible says in James 4:14: “You are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.”

That’s not a particularly comforting thought if we’re looking only at this life. But the Christian life isn’t about living forever here. The Bible teaches us that this life is temporary, but eternity is not. And that changes the way we look at our days. We tend to measure life by years – how many years we’ve lived, how many years we have left, how many things we hope to accomplish. But God tells us to think differently. Psalm 90:12 says, “So teach us to number our days, that we may present to You a heart of wisdom.” Jim’s story reminded me that we don’t know how many days we have. Thirty-nine years may seem terribly short. Eighty-nine years can seem long. But from the perspective of eternity, both are incredibly brief.

And that’s why what we do with the days God gives us matters. The things we do for Christ have eternal significance. The people we encourage matter. The souls we influence matter. The testimony we leave behind matters. Perhaps that’s another reason this encounter with an old VW affected me so deeply. I realized that I had never forgotten Jim. He didn’t know that his friendship had left a mark on my life. And that makes me wonder whose lives we are influencing today without even realizing it? We may never know.  But we know exactly what God has asked us to do with the years we have been given: love Him, serve Him, love people, and faithfully point others toward Jesus Christ. The question isn’t simply how long did we live? The greater question is: What did we do with the life God gave us?

(Kevin Cernek is Pastor of Martintown Community Church, Martintown, Wisconsin)