Pilgrim Road Blog Photo

Pilgrim Road Blog Photo

Monday, October 27, 2014

31 Days of Courage: The Courage to Think About A Very Important Funeral...Your Own

If you want to clear out a room quicker that yelling "fire", just start talking about death.  Oh, that's a really popular topic.  The most common, inevitable eventuality of the human condition is likely the least considered.  Folks become Scarlet O'Hara when it comes to a careful reflection on the end of their lives: "I won't think about that today, I'll think about that tomorrow..."

Except no one really knows if tomorrow will come.

"Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow.  What is your life?  You are a mist that appears for a little while, and then vanishes."  James 4:14

We skirted that one right here in my own family.  Some of you have been smacked head on with that reality with someone you love.  But the ultimate truth is, we're all going that when.  Every one of us is terminal, we simply don't know the date.

So how then shall we live, knowing that the guillotene is hanging over our heads?  Is this a call to morose self examination and morbid introspection.

Heck no.

(And by the way, this is a prime example of why I write these blogs.  Because no one needs to hear this more than me).

If you got the note from the doctor saying you had 6 months to live, how would things change in your life?  I'll bet relationships with God and man would be uppermost in your mind.  I'll bet you would pray a lot more and waste a lot less time on stupid things.  And I bet your complaining would go down and your gratitude would spike.

Listen, it's scary to think about crossing that mysterious bridge from this life to a land we've never been to before.  I don't relish the crossing, but I do long for what's on the other side.  I'm glad it will be a beautiful place, a peaceful, wonderful, exciting place.  But all those things are secondary.  I want to see my Jesus.  In that sense, heaven could be a barn and I'd be happy forever.  Heaven is about being with God forever, finally, with no veil between us.

For some people, that thought fills them with dread.  But that's because they don't know yet how the Savior loves them so, and invites them to have their sins washed away at the place where death lost the war: the Cross.  For every man, to the worst and the most wicked, the Cross of Christ is the relief from the fear of death.  Without it, you are right to be afraid.  No one stands before God without holiness.  And I haven't found one of us yet, least of all me, who is good enough or just enough to face that perfection without the Perfector.  There is none righteous, no not one.  Only the God-Man can bring us safely home to our Father.

That is exceptionally good news!  The word of God states that the Father "desires that NONE should perish."

So be brave today and don't be afraid to think about your own funeral.  It's coming, and you don't know when.

Decision are for the living.  How we live. What we live for.  Who we live for.

"Therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."

Love someone well today.  Go the extra mile.  Give God praise and gratitude.  Eat something delicious.  Smell the fall leaves.  Slow down.

Think about your funeral today, not tomorrow.

Your friend on the pilgrim road,

Loriann

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