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Death, Our Teacher

I woke up this morning from another rough night's sleep.  Nasal congestion, a headache, foggy brain, scratchy throat.  Allergies, again, it seems, and probably a little sleep apnea. It's been pretty bad lately, despite my attempts to find the right combination of medications and to drop a few pounds and get in shape to aid my night time respiration.  As I'm writing this, on mornings like this... I don't feel invincible like I once did.  I feel like a slow foretaste of death.  As my dad says, "Getting old sucks!"  And that's just it... I'm not old.  I'm barely to my mid-forties.  I'm relatively healthy.  But the difference between how I feel today and how I felt just a few short years ago is palpable.  

As I'm reading through David Gibson's book, Living Life Backwards, I've been thinking about death a lot, which probably sounds morbid at first blush.  However, I appreciate how Gibson walks us through the words of the Preacher in the book of Ecclesiastes and shows how facing the inevitability of our death doesn't make us morbid but rather allows us to be deeper, to focus on what really matters, and to receive our time as a gift, rather than something either to be squandered purely on entertainment or ratcheted in our vain attempts to attain and maintain novelty and gain.

Death can be, and ought to be, our teacher.  The day of death is better than the day of our birth (Ecc 7:1), not because death is somehow greater than life, but because of how the sobering inevitability of death can shake us and wake us up and also reveal who we are. While some take the inevitability of death as a call to eat, drink, and be merry, death can -if we will listen to it- point its bony finger into our chest and ask us some hard questions... 

What do you want to be known and remembered for?  
What do you want them to say about you at your funeral?
Who will you be at the day when our Creator calls in our time?

"He worked a lot"
"He read a lot of great books and was smart"
"He spent a lot of time working on house projects"
"He got angry a lot"
"He spent a lot of time alone"
"He was a bitter person who didn't really like people"
"He worried about a lot of things"

Or...

"He didn't let the troubles, insults, and difficulties in life stop him from being a loving person"
"He was unselfish... He looked more at how he could make the lives of others better than how he could fix things for himself"
"He was a lot like Jesus"
"He sure did love Jesus.  You could tell."
"He was a kind, fun, person and a great example to live up to."
"He lived life, enjoyed what he was given, and made sure others did, too."

Let's avoid the excuse of saying, "But that's just my personality."  We do have personality differences, but then there are issues of the heart... things that we pursue, things that we idolize, things we grasp and cling for, things that we hold dear that aren't very important after all.  

O Lord, may the inevitability of my death propel me toward and change me into a person who enjoys the time You've given me and reflects the love and goodness of Your Son, Jesus.

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