Mike Edge, Five Foot Giant!

Life Lessons Learned from a Consecrated Soul

By a Church Full of Come-Lately Friends

Remarks By David E. Smith given at the Memorial Service of Elder Mike Edge, June 3, 2023, 4pm, at Calhoun Seventh-day Adventist Church, Calhoun, Georgia, USA.

I am Dave, Mike's golf partner and friend. That's WHO I am, this day. WHAT I am today, is COVETOUS! I wish I had been associated for two or three decades with Elder Mike Edge the Pastor, Youth Director, and Conference President in God's special messenger Church like Elder Livesay and Elder Thurber were. I wish I had known Mike for most of a lifetime like his dearest on-earth family members did! I represent a Church full of Mike's come-lately friends grateful God allowed us to see him up-close in his finest hour!

Here are five life lessons his Come-Lately Friends learned from Mike:

1. Mike was proof of a little-known athletic fact: A short golfer with short golf

clubs can hit a golf ball longer than a long golfer with long golf clubs can! He was walk-around living evidence that physical stature is neither the measure of a good golfer nor a big man! Mike was big as a man's man, a wood-worker, a house-builder, a woodsman who turned ordinary children into adults who love camping and wildlife and hiking and Jesus! His young bride was surprised by how her young husband could fix everything! Recently, one of us asked Juanita about Mike's ability to make household repairs. Misjudging where the conversation was going, the would-be journalist interrupted, "But, now advanced technology stumps him on some things?" "No," Juanita rejoindered, "Mike can still fix anything!" Mike was a man's man, a big man, God's man, and a big model for boys and girls growing up to become men and women of God!

2. I learned that Mike could pull his cart up the last hill to the clubhouse at the top, and when I asked him if he was in pain, he confessed, "Yes." But, I would have never known unless I'd asked. Mike taught us what the Bible was describing in Philippians 2:14-15 (NIV). "Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation in which you shine like stars!"

3. I won't forget singing "God Will Take Care of You" with those who loved him most and seeing Mike move his lips to the old music. It was as if he was assuring us with Philippians 2:17(NIV) and 1:19(NCB). "Even if I am being poured out like a drink offering... I know that through your prayers and with the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will result in deliverance for me."

4. When God's end-time saints are described standing straight and tall for Christ, the Bible uses these words for them: "very patient, endurance, endure patiently, hold fast, perseverance, remain firm." Just a few Sabbaths ago, we saw that at the bottom of these stairs. Our First Elder donned the brace which supported his spine with the vertebrae missing because of malignant metastasis. Then ever so gently, our Pastor and Elders assisted Mike to his place behind the pulpit where he preached his next-to-last sermon. Cancer could not silence Brother Mike, the enduring saint! The devil who invented Cancer could not muzzle the Lord's man preaching God's Word! He had the "patience of the saints." I say it was Mike's next-to-last sermon because I hear his life preaching powerfully today, in this service. Don't you? Hebrews 6:12 admonishes us to persist, continue on, abide, and patiently endure with faithfulness to Christ. "Be imitators of those who inherit the promises through faith and perseverance." "I wanna' be, I wanna' be. I wanna' be like Mike!" How about you?!

5. From our kitchen's bay window, Cheryl and I routinely observe the farmer's pond attract Canada Geese, Blue Heron, white egrets and once or twice

in 20 years, some visiting cranes and storks. About three months ago, I texted Mike, asking the seasoned birder if it was possible we were seeing what we thought we were seeing! Our national emblem was circling the humble farm pond behind our house and repeatedly plunging talons-first into its shallows. "It could be an Osprey or other raptor," Mike said. But, while Bald Eagles are not native to North Georgia, you do live on a flyway and he could very well be an individual specimen of our National Bird who is migrating with an uncalibrated on-board GPS." In Isaiah 40:10, 29-30, an Old Testament Resurrection passage which John quotes in the Second Coming promise of Revelation 22, Mike's revivified, eternal energy-infused, glorified body, is shown released from his resting-waiting place with faultless homing instincts in heavenward flight with angel escort! "Behold, the Lord God will come...His reward is with him... Those who trust in the Eternal One will regain their strength. They will soar on wings as eagles!" "He which testifieth these things saith. 'Surely I come quickly.' Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!"