Choosing the Good Part
Consecrating His Whole Life
Brother Yucheng, just a few days before we learned the news of your passing, as if by some unseen prompting I took out a yellowed photograph from nearly half a century ago, set it before me, and said to your sister, "This is your younger brother on the day he represented the National Taiwan Normal University rugby team to compete against the Japanese university combined team in Tokyo, Japan. At that time I was doing my internship in Japan; meeting a kindred spirit in a foreign land, we talked through the whole night until the early hours of the next day before we finally fell asleep." More than forty years have passed; now, facing a recent photograph, I am truly overcome with sighing—truly we may say that the living and the dead are now parted.
Thanks and praise be to the Lord's mercy and lovingkindness, who in God's house perfected such a brother as Yucheng, faithful and loving toward the Lord and His church. We can only worship the Lord; though there is the parting of flesh-and-blood kin, there is always a feeling of reluctance to part. Thank the Lord! He is the Lord who gives men hope, enabling us to overcome the sorrow of temporary parting. On the one hand, it also stirs us up, while it is still today, to pursue with all our might and to gain Christ as the prize.
Brother Yucheng, you have already chosen the good part, consecrated your whole life, run your course, kept the faith, and fought the fight you should fight; now the crown of righteousness is laid up for you. Rest in the Lord's bosom, awaiting the second coming of the Lord who loves you.