The final time I talked to my little brother, Ricky, the conversation was jovial. We caught up on what was happening in his Texas home. He had a new job, a girlfriend, and his health, although he had a history of illness and heart problems, seemed to have stabilized.

In his early 60s, he asked me about Carolina Reaper Peppers. He’d watched a television show that discussed the peppers, supposedly the hottest in the world, and sold only in the Carolina's. I told him I’d never heard of them, but I would check into it, then and send him some.

Three days later, I was awakened from a sound sleep about 2 a.m. by a ringing telephone, which is never a good thing. It was his sobbing girlfriend. She’d been trying to reach him all day. When she went over to check on him, she found his body lying near the front door. With his health history, his death was a surprise, but not shocking.

When I think about that conversation with my brother, I think about what more important things we could have talked about. Chief among these, our relationship with Jesus Christ.

It was a lack of conversation that I’ll forever regret. If he’d answered no to either question, I could have led him to salvation. Or at least tried.

I believe my brother’s name was written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. And that I will l see him again. But I’ve adopted a new policy that I put into practice when I called my best friend to tell him Ricky had died. I ended the conversation with a question: Do you have a relationship with Jesus?

I may not know for certain about my brother, but the lack of conversation on the most important question can be the catalyst for conversations with others.

Read the full devotion at https://devotableapp.com/daily-devotion-my-final-conversation-with-my-brother