24 July 2010

Travelling Without Luggage

Have you ever wondered what you'd feel if you were told you have months or week's left to live?

Death is the mysterious journey. No carry-on or luggage allowed. Your favourite books must stay on the shelf. Your comfortable travel clothes won't be with to unpack. Nothing you've seen down here or called your own will go with you.

I think we often believe it's the risky things, the daring adventures that we'll look back on with satisfaction as a life well-lived. It's throwing our inhibitions to the wind and tasting all there is of life.

Yet I can't help but believe, as you are struggling for your last breath, you won't be reliving your skydiving jump or the sensual pleasures you experimented with or the money that you made through all your work. If there is last minute business you'll wish you'd done, it will be making things right with God and with those you love.

Remember your Creator
in the days of your youth,
before the days of trouble come
and the years approach when you will say,
“I find no pleasure in them"...

Remember Him—before the silver cord is severed...
and the dust returns to the ground it came from,
and the spirit returns to God who gave it.
Ecclesiastes 12:1,6-7

Even for the Christian, dying is a strange phenomenon. We are leaving all we've known. What we know of our true Home is sketchy tales. We believe the promises that heaven will far surpass all that is here. Yet, the only true way to be ready to leave is to lay all our treasure up there.
If we've invested in the souls of family and friends, our parting is only temporary. If we've sent our treasure ahead of us, we don't leave anything of value behind.
Now is the only moment you have. 
 
Now is the time you can repent and follow God.
 
This is the time you can call someone and tell them you love them, affirm their worth and your appreciation, tell them your sorry. At their death or yours, many "big" things will seem so small in importance.
 
"Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins" (James 4:17)

1 comment:

  1. Good exhortation. We need to learn how to die now so that we might live through Him who holds the keys to hell...and the deathbed experience is the least favorable clime to look for it. Now is the time. Good stuff.

    ReplyDelete