Musings - death

It's probably true in most of our lives that death seems to come in waves. In the last week, I've heard about 4 deaths. One was the tragic lost of a 20 year-old daughter. One was a loss of a husband while preparing for another funeral. One was the loss of a father. And the last one was the loss of Larry Norman, known as the "Father of Christian Rock."

When we lose someone close to us, it sort of "slaps us" back to the reality that we will all die some day. Most of us will not get to choose the day we die. The most amazing thing to me in all of these deaths, is that God KNEW exactly when each person would die. Even when people take their own lives, God KNOWS when that will be. Unfortunately we don't. We have no idea when our last day on earth will be.

Pondering death makes most of us melancholy. Even if we believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that we will live in heaven for eternity, death still is not a pleasant subject. After all, we miss those who leave this world while we are left to carry on. We have empty places in our hearts when that person leaves. We often ponder the "what ifs" of missed chances to talk or visit with that person.


Larry Norman was known as a "rebel" in some circles of Christianity. He was very vocal about his faith and his frustration with the often luke-warmness of the church. He has a number of songs that talk about the stark reality of death. At the end of this physical life, there are only two options - heaven or hell. We all have chosen to believe various things about these two places. We all have chosen what to believe about how you get there.

We as humans tend to complicate God's amazing offer. He sent his son, Jesus, to be a savior for all of us. We tend to add or subtract things from the simplicity of either believing in Jesus as your savior or rejecting Him. We want it to feel right or fit our way of thinking. But it's just a simple yes or no question - Do you believe that Jesus died for your sins? If you do, then He guarantees eternity with Him. If you don't, He makes the opposite guarantee - eternity without Him. Yep, it takes some faith to believe that, but if you don't exercise your faith, you still fall into the 'no' category.

Here are the conclusions I've made about death with this round of thinking about it:

-God knows when you will die
-You do not know when you will die
-If you believe that Jesus is your savior, GOD guarantees eternity with Him
-If you don't, GOD guarantees eternity without Him

So it seems to be in your best interest to decide sooner rather than later what you believe about God's offer of salvation through Jesus. It's in your best interest because you can be 20, 53, 60 or in your 80's and it could be your last day here.

As one of the titles of Larry Norman's songs says "I Wished We'd All Been Ready."

I'm ready, are you?