George Frank Fields Sr.
On July 6th, 1928, something funny happened in heaven. Even God laughed at it and God laughed so hard that in that split second in which God was forming a baby in the womb of Melaina Fields, some of God’s laughter got mixed up in the forming of the baby, and that child was destined to be humorous and a jokester.
So if Geroge Frank Fields ever got you with a good joke or used humor to get you out of a situation, know that he got it honestly from heaven. Humor was just one of the gifts God placed in Frank to touch the lives of people. God appointed Frank 27,067 days to make a difference in the lives of others for him. The psalmist has said, in Psalm 90:12, “teach us oh lord to number our days that we might gain a heart of wisdom.”
All of us here today have received an appointment of days that are quickly passing away. Are we using those days in the knowledge that one day God we’re going to stand before God and give an account.
When Frank’s days came to an end, there was an announcement in heaven that a child of God was coming home. The child born with the sense of humor would now delight the heart of God in a special way because the Bible boldly declares in Psalms 116:15 Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints.
Today, we often think death is something to be avoided at all cost. We try to resist getting old by having all kinds of beauty treatments, wrinkle removers, and dyes. We do all that we can to stay away from the cemetery. But the world’s view of death is not the same as God’s view of death.
For the believer in Jesus Christ, death is merely the passing from one form of service to God to another. You see Frank Fields decided to die few years ago when he made the decision to follow Jesus Christ. He took Jesus at his word, when Jesus said, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies. We may be at a funeral, with a corpse in a coffin, but I submit to you, that George Frank Fields Sr. is more alive today than he has ever been. He is now among that great cloud of witnesses who has gone on before us cheering us on in the faith.
There is a verse in the bible that speaks of time and chance as being a great factor in our lives. It says in Eccles. 9:11 I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all.
God blessed Frank with great ability as an athlete. He could play baseball, basketball, swim, football, bowl and more. His basement has an assortment of trophies of his athletic accomplishments. What would have happened if he had been born in 68 instead of 28 as far as sports are concerned? I’m told that, when he was at Central, he was doing “the Magic Johnson moves on the basketball court, before Magic Johnson was in his mother’s womb. His life represents the reality of the many Black Athletes who never got the opportunity to play big time because of the color of their skin.
Had he been born in 68 though, he would have missed out on the gifts of Sylvia, and Lori and George and his grandchildren. There’s no doubt in my mind, he would have gladly for gone any professional contract to have the love of his family that he had because they meant so much to him.
People were always more important to Frank than were things or money. His delight was in people. When we asked his family for words to describe him, they said he was humorous, comical, a jokester, a funny surpriser and sometimes just downright crazy. These are the characteristics of a person seeking to bring joy into the lives of others.
Frank also had a thoughtful side to him. He was the one to remember you on your birthdays. He didn’t just grab a card that said Happy Birthday. He read the cards until he found one that fit you from his perspective. His son George said, “it touched him how his father chose cards, because when he could no longer get the cards himself, he would send his son to find a card that had such and such a message.” It trained his son how to find cards for others.
Frank also had a very compassionate side to him. He needed it married to Sylvia because she would bring all kinds of friends and relatives from a host of circumstances to come and live with them for various periods of time. Franks arms were always open to make people them feel loved while they were there. When you were a guest in Frank’s home he showed you the kind of hospitality that made you feel like family. But if you stayed too long, he would get up and start vacuming to let you know it was time for you to go home.
Frank was known for his honesty and openness about people you would bring into your life. He never hesitated to give you his opinion on some new boyfriend or girlfriend. Ask Lori or George about their father’s approval system. Frank knew that the quality of the people you hung out with would determine the course and the direction of your life.
Now it has been said, that there were times that Frank may have given you the impression that he was a little better off himself than he actually was. When Frank met Sylvia, they actually lived in an apartment building across from each other. Sylvia was the southern country girl from South Carolina, and Frank was the cool man from the city of Cleveland.
Frank was a baseball player at the time. I don’t know if Frank was trying to keep all of his options open or just trying to make the ladies think he was rich, but when he took Sylvia out, he also took out her two friends at the same time to dinner.
Here’s this man with three lovely ladies out all at once at a downtown restaurant. Sylvia said she couldn’t tell at first which of them he really was interested in. Well the only think wrong with pretending to be rich is that you run out of money quickly.
Frank had to make some decisions fairly quickly as he drained his little bank account. He chose Sylvia. Now to hear Frank tell it, he makes it sound as though he was Sylvia’s knight in shining armor who saved her from a life of poverty and destitution.
Frank told me on one occasion though, that somebody had told him, “you’d be a fool to let that pretty southern girl get away. She’s going to make somebody a good wife.” Frank said he knew it was true. When I asked Sylvia what was it that attracted her to him, she said he was just so friendly and always smiling. He was like a person from South Carolina that you would know, not like these other slick guys from Cleveland. I don’t know if Frank would be disappointed or not to know that it wasn’t his good looks that grabbed her attention.
Thus began a journey that lasted some 35 years together. One of the good part of those 35 years was that Frank was a liberated man before we men knew we needed liberation. He was willing to cook, to clean, to wash clothes and keep things neat around the house. Frank was a very organized man who believed in being prepared. He’s the only man I know that if you were down to twelve rolls of toilet paper in your house, you needed to rush to the store and get some more.
But part of Frank’s liberation was also due to his desire to see his family succeed in life. He wanted to be their to help his children and his wife succeed in their education. They worked together as a team in a family unit. Sylvia would come home from work, go to school, come back home from school to help George with his homework.
Sometimes it would be about 1am when they finished, and Sylvia would have to do her own homework. They could not have done it without them all working together. Their graduations were shared moments of accomplishments because they knew they had worked together to make them happen.
When George came home with some poor grades, his father would tell him, “now look your mother is working full time, being a mother and a wife, and she’s getting good grades. All you’re doing is just going to school, and look at these grades. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Well if he hadn’t been, he was now.
Frank also knew about tough love, before there was such a thing. One day little George was with a friend that his father had told him was not that good of a friend to hand with. This friend set a group of leaves on fire, and a neighbor saw it and called the police. She saw George with the boy and told the police. She made it clear that George had not participated in the fire setting.
The police asked Frank if he wanted to use the situation to teach his son a lesson about hanging with the wrong crowd. If so, they would have him come down to the Police Station. Frank said yes, “Let’s teach him a lesson.” At first his mother did not want her son treated like a criminal, but then she seized the moment to teach him a lesson as well.
She told him, “All the years of his life as old as he is, your father has never been in trouble with the police, here you are not even out of elementary school and look at you.” I think it was at that point that George made up his mind to listen to his father’s advice about his choice of friends.
He brought his friends home to meet his father. His father became known as the Spaghetti man because he cooked spaghetti for the neighborhood kids. But Frank was doing more than just cooking spaghetti. He was becoming a father to kids who did not have a father, and he was also helping his son to know which friends could be a help to him in life, and which ones he should let go of.
His father was there to give him a thumbs up when he brought Dawn into his life. His father was glad to Lori a thumbs up when she brought in Keith. Keith thinks her father was happy because he had a job. But actually he liked Keith’s personality.
When Frank and Sylvia got married at Garden Valley Church, Frank liked the pastor and got very involved in the life of the church. He served in various ways at the church and really gave his time and energy to it. But when the church closed, Frank drifted out of the church. You see Frank had been in the church and in God, but Frank didn’t really have the church in Him or the personal relationship with God.
He was like the person who Jesus said he would one day say to, “I never knew you. To which the person would respond, but Lord I did all these wonderful things in the community, in the home, and in the church. Of course you know me.” But Jesus replied, “depart from me, because I do not know you.”
When we as pastors came into Frank’s life, he was distant from the church. He was in the hospital and Pastor Toby would visit him. At first his attitude was, “Oh no, here comes that Pastor Toby. But with time it became, “Oh Wow, here comes Pastor Toby.” As God was working in his wife’s life, Frank noticed a change. He knew there was something she had, that he did not.
Slowly he became more and more interested in the things of God. He finally came to that point where he no longer wanted to be content knowing about God, He wanted to know God for Himself. He made the decision to go from being an observer to being a disciple of Jesus Christ. This time he allowed God to come in and to change his heart.
Sure he had been a wonderful father, a good husband, a great provider, a hard worker, a church goer. But his eyes were opened to see that, all of that would have been in vain, if he died without knowing God’s plan of salvation for his life. He gave his life, however much he had left to live for the Lord.
One Sunday morning he surprised his wife by showing up at church and coming forward to join. It was one of the most meaningful moments in both of their lives. Sylvia knew the change was real. She said after 30 years of marriage, it was as though they were just meeting each other again for the first time. The presence of Christ, brought a renewed sense of purpose to their marriage and a new kind of a love for each other.
God even arranged for them to spend more time together in bed by allowing Sylvia to do a gymnastic stunt on the basement stairs which landed her in a cast. There they were, these two love birds, trying to take of each other when neither could really take care of him or herself. Thank God Sylvia’s sister came to help them out, and for all the saints who brought them food and encouragement.
Frank had been ill for a long time and his battle with arthritis was a mighty struggle in itself. But he had a never give up spirit. His daughter hung up a poster in his room which was Philippians 4:13. It said, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” That verse gave Frank a new sense of determination to do what he could for the Lord. It’s something how we take for granted something as simple as being able to come to church.
We complain, it’s too hot, or it might rain, or I just want to sleep in. Yet here was a man praying to be able to come to church. One morning Sylvia had fed Frank in bed because he could barely get up. She went on to church. Frank was thinking, if I can just get to the car, I know I can make it to church. He struggled that morning, and got to the car and made it to church.
Sylvia was so surprised to see him. He wasn’t feeling that good, but he had reached his goal to be among the saints that morning. It didn’t matter how much pain he was in during the service, he still wanted to be there. On that particular Sunday, he needed help after church to make it back to the car.
One regret of Frank’s life after coming to the know the Lord was having shown his son how to do so much in life, but not how to be a man of God serving the Lord in the church. His desire was that his children, would show their children what it is to grow up in a knowledge of the Lord. Frank wanted to be a better example even with the pain that it cost him in his body.
God knew that Frank and Sylvia’s days were numbered shorter than they thought. In his love and his mercy, God gave them and their family some extra blessed time together. Frank’s last night in this life had him laughing and joking. We serve a wonderful God.
Frank has left behind a legacy and has gone to be with Jesus Christ. You may think, with all the joy and laugher he brought into the lives of his family and friends, and with all the love and commitment he gave to his wife, children, and grandchildren, Frank certainly deserves to go to heaven. At one time in his life, even Frank believed it.
But if could speak to us today, he would say that’s not quite true. You see, according to the Bible, none of us deserves to go to heaven. Did you know that according to Jesus, most people will not go to heaven?
Jesus said in , Mat 7:13 "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
Entering into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ is the only way to enter that narrow gate. All you have to do is to admit, "God, I have done a lot of things I should not have done. I realize I cannot pay for all that I have done. I ask you for forgiveness. I accept that when Jesus Christ died on the cross, He being holy and righteous, paid the penalty for my sin. I invite him to come into my life and take control of it." It took Frank far more many years than he wished it to make that decision.
You will make numerous decisions in your life between your birth and your death. But the only decision that will still be personally affecting you a 1000 years from today, is what did you do with Jesus Christ. The Bible teaches there will certainly be a resurrection of everybody from the dead, and then comes the judgment of God.
Frank Fields Sr. is prepared for that Judgment. Like the Apostle Paul she can say, and the time has come for my departure. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day--and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.
We may say of Frank, was my friend, he was my uncle, he was my brother, he was my father, or he was my husband, but the greatest truth of them all is that George Frank Fields Sr. is and forever will be a a child of God who has now completely returned to God. For those of us who die without knowing Jesus Christ. George Frank Fields Sr., will only be a memory, a very good and loving memory. But for those of us who do know Jesus Christ, George Frank Fields Sr. is simply waiting to meet us on the other side.
For the Bible clearly teaches,
1 Th 4:13 Brothers and sisters , we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men and women, who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord’s own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep.
For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.
