Think about your last day of your life. Or last week, year, whatever you want in order for you to think about the real and big issues of life. If you knew, like those two characters in The Bucket List, played by Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman; when you were going to die, if you knew the exact time and date of your death, if you knew when God was going to take your life, if you knew when your time was up; would you live life differently, from when you knew, til when it actually happened?
I know it’s a convoluted question, but let me put it this way. People often like to put off their own death, not to think about it until it is in fact too late. When they’re in perfect health (or so they seem!), they run and continue to do so, paying the bills, running the household, living the only way they know how, which is to avoid, avoid the fact that they are in fact going to die someday, and that when that day comes, it will hit them with vengeance. I guess always we as a human race are susceptible into not worrying about ‘eternity’; the stuff that really matter, filling our life with the most meaningful stuff when it is indeed too late. Like the bloke in his thirties who suddenly realises he has terminal prostate cancer, given 3 months to live, suddenly realising that he needs to rekindle his relationship with his dad that he’s never spoken to in more than ten years. Or how about a guy who’s just been placed on Death Row in prison, with his execution to be within a month, suddenly asking the deep and meaningful questions of why he’s here and where he’s going. I guess in my life, I’ve discovered that I don’t want to be like those people who live life, but when they are brought down to earth, they are suddenly filled with regret and anger, worried that they haven’t filled life with the most important things…they salvage what they can, but it will never be what they hope it to be. I have been encouraged, mostly by my parents, as they’ve always told me that I should live with the knowledge that yes, I’m going to die someday, and yes, I don’t know when that will be, and that only God knows. I should then live life with the mentality- how would I live my last day?
Wouldn’t I tell my parents and relatives that I love them? Wouldn’t I hang out with my friends, impart wisdom and knowledge onto them, impart lessons that I’ve learnt in my life so that they can make their lives better? Whatever you conjure up about what you know you should do on your last day; my parents have said that that mentality should be for every day; that you should live every day as if it is a gift from God. Since we don’t know the future, we don’t know when we’re going to die, it may be today, tomorrow, next week, next year, we don’t know. But I’m not saying that you should be running around worrying about death. If you do that, you won’t be living life to the fullest, as it said in John 10:10b; that Jesus came “…in order that you might have life- life in all its fullness…” This means freedom, freedom from worrying about what might or might not happen. Freedom from fear, freedom to live like the Lord intended for us to. Everyday is a day where we should wake up knowing that God has intended something new for us to learn that day.
However, I know that I am susceptible to this as well, that sometimes when we wake up from a good nights sleep, we start to worry about work, about what this person might say or what he may not say; and then we start to make sure if there is anything we can do in order for ourselves to be presented in a good way to all our superiors and bosses…when all Jesus is asking for us to do when we wake up every morning is to cast all our troubles and cares at his feet, telling us that life was not meant to be lived with us carrying those problems alone. Jesus is there to help us every day, but in the midst of this technological age, it’s hard to see the Author and Perfector of Life at work.
Sometimes we can’t enjoy the view that God has given every person, because there is a big house on the other side of the street that is blocking the view. Or you just have this pressing document that you need to get off your chest because you promised your boss that you’d have it in for him by the weekend, where you would be doing a presentation, but it’s the same weekend that your kids want to go down the coast for a camping trip, they’ve been talking about it for months. Now if I were in that same situation, I’d ask myself, ‘Now what would Jesus do?’ I know you’d laugh at my suggestion, but truly, I know in my heart that they’ll always be more work opportunities but I’ll only have my kids once. I have to go back to that mentality that how I live on my last day of life should be how I live every day.
I guess this was also evident in Dad’s life as well, and how he told me that there was a point in his life where he just couldn’t wait for the weekend, and how he wished his week of 5 days away so that he can get to the ‘Saturday’ and the ‘Sunday’ in order for him to start living. But then it dawned on him during 2008 that God didn’t wire him to only ‘live’ on the weekend, but to live every day. In theory, Dad was in fact wishing his life away. So now, his ordeal and how he’s seeing things now has rubbed off on me. And what I say is this. We don’t need to wait until we’re 50 or 60 to start doing those courses about life re-evaluation. You can start at any age, even when you’re a teenager. I know it sounds scary, and you probably think that this kinda stuff brings with it thoughts of ‘death is coming’, but sometimes we need to be reminded that God is in control of our life, and our death too. You never know when you’re going to ‘kick the bucket’, just look at those people who had come and gone that no one expected: Peter Brock, car driving legend who ‘owned’ Mount Panorama, Heath Ledger, budding actor only 28 and just finished portraying the Joker in the Batman film The Dark Knight, Steve Irwin, famous crocodile hunter and the one who pioneered Australia Zoo, and not to mention Jane McGrath, wife of Glenn, one of the worlds famous and all-time highly ranked wicket takers of the game of cricket. Slot in Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, who left this world through ‘cardiac arrest’, and then you start to think.
These people, if they had their say, would’ve wanted to die because of natural causes…but sometimes life can be unscripted. How we deal with these issues needs to be right; we need to focus on God, on the maker and star-breather of the universe, but also the one who came to Earth in order save ourselves from judgement and ultimately death itself. And so each day God is telling us ‘My child, you have so much more to unravel, so much more to fully know and understand about this planet, so much more about the depths and crevasses of my unending love that you have not even fully understood or grasped to entirety’ and every day should be the day when we make this a priority in our lives. You sit down and ask God, ‘where do you want me to head?’ And sometimes you will get an answer, but think twice before you proclaim that it was God trying to speak to you. Because God has spoken and told us that in this life, many of our decisions, though we may think that we’re basing our choices on ‘the voice of God’, we may in fact be listening to our own conscience, or sometimes even the Devil himself. Satan loves it when we are led astray, he is like the wolf in sheep’s clothing, and sometimes in this world, we as a human race cannot tell the difference between truth, and lies. It is so nice and neatly packaged that we settle for the background, we settle with the potential that we’ve been tricked into believing is right for us. We don’t recognise that God’s potential for us is far beyond our wildest dreams.
So, you think; if God is saying that we should live life to the fullest, unleashing all our God-given potential instead of settling into the seat of conformity and acceptance; how are we supposed to do what God has placed on our hearts? I guess the answer to this is to understand that we all have talents, gifts, and aspirations, goals, dreams and the like. All we need to do is to pray, read His Word and God will give us pictures, signs, conformations that the road you’re going to travel on is the right one. We don’t need to give up any hope, because God is there every step of the way, probing, asking the tough questions, so that we can make the tough calls in life. I guess for me a tough call was what major I studied at university. Another would’ve been how to maintain the friendship with a friend, yet also care about the friend as well in regards to the choices they’re making and how to approach that with the sensitivity needed in order for the friendship to still be intact after such an encounter. But I guess in whatever you do, we should do it all, live life like there is no tomorrow, as if this was our last day on Earth. God will direct you, if you’re willing to open your eyes and look at the signs.
I know it’s a convoluted question, but let me put it this way. People often like to put off their own death, not to think about it until it is in fact too late. When they’re in perfect health (or so they seem!), they run and continue to do so, paying the bills, running the household, living the only way they know how, which is to avoid, avoid the fact that they are in fact going to die someday, and that when that day comes, it will hit them with vengeance. I guess always we as a human race are susceptible into not worrying about ‘eternity’; the stuff that really matter, filling our life with the most meaningful stuff when it is indeed too late. Like the bloke in his thirties who suddenly realises he has terminal prostate cancer, given 3 months to live, suddenly realising that he needs to rekindle his relationship with his dad that he’s never spoken to in more than ten years. Or how about a guy who’s just been placed on Death Row in prison, with his execution to be within a month, suddenly asking the deep and meaningful questions of why he’s here and where he’s going. I guess in my life, I’ve discovered that I don’t want to be like those people who live life, but when they are brought down to earth, they are suddenly filled with regret and anger, worried that they haven’t filled life with the most important things…they salvage what they can, but it will never be what they hope it to be. I have been encouraged, mostly by my parents, as they’ve always told me that I should live with the knowledge that yes, I’m going to die someday, and yes, I don’t know when that will be, and that only God knows. I should then live life with the mentality- how would I live my last day?
Wouldn’t I tell my parents and relatives that I love them? Wouldn’t I hang out with my friends, impart wisdom and knowledge onto them, impart lessons that I’ve learnt in my life so that they can make their lives better? Whatever you conjure up about what you know you should do on your last day; my parents have said that that mentality should be for every day; that you should live every day as if it is a gift from God. Since we don’t know the future, we don’t know when we’re going to die, it may be today, tomorrow, next week, next year, we don’t know. But I’m not saying that you should be running around worrying about death. If you do that, you won’t be living life to the fullest, as it said in John 10:10b; that Jesus came “…in order that you might have life- life in all its fullness…” This means freedom, freedom from worrying about what might or might not happen. Freedom from fear, freedom to live like the Lord intended for us to. Everyday is a day where we should wake up knowing that God has intended something new for us to learn that day.
However, I know that I am susceptible to this as well, that sometimes when we wake up from a good nights sleep, we start to worry about work, about what this person might say or what he may not say; and then we start to make sure if there is anything we can do in order for ourselves to be presented in a good way to all our superiors and bosses…when all Jesus is asking for us to do when we wake up every morning is to cast all our troubles and cares at his feet, telling us that life was not meant to be lived with us carrying those problems alone. Jesus is there to help us every day, but in the midst of this technological age, it’s hard to see the Author and Perfector of Life at work.
Sometimes we can’t enjoy the view that God has given every person, because there is a big house on the other side of the street that is blocking the view. Or you just have this pressing document that you need to get off your chest because you promised your boss that you’d have it in for him by the weekend, where you would be doing a presentation, but it’s the same weekend that your kids want to go down the coast for a camping trip, they’ve been talking about it for months. Now if I were in that same situation, I’d ask myself, ‘Now what would Jesus do?’ I know you’d laugh at my suggestion, but truly, I know in my heart that they’ll always be more work opportunities but I’ll only have my kids once. I have to go back to that mentality that how I live on my last day of life should be how I live every day.
I guess this was also evident in Dad’s life as well, and how he told me that there was a point in his life where he just couldn’t wait for the weekend, and how he wished his week of 5 days away so that he can get to the ‘Saturday’ and the ‘Sunday’ in order for him to start living. But then it dawned on him during 2008 that God didn’t wire him to only ‘live’ on the weekend, but to live every day. In theory, Dad was in fact wishing his life away. So now, his ordeal and how he’s seeing things now has rubbed off on me. And what I say is this. We don’t need to wait until we’re 50 or 60 to start doing those courses about life re-evaluation. You can start at any age, even when you’re a teenager. I know it sounds scary, and you probably think that this kinda stuff brings with it thoughts of ‘death is coming’, but sometimes we need to be reminded that God is in control of our life, and our death too. You never know when you’re going to ‘kick the bucket’, just look at those people who had come and gone that no one expected: Peter Brock, car driving legend who ‘owned’ Mount Panorama, Heath Ledger, budding actor only 28 and just finished portraying the Joker in the Batman film The Dark Knight, Steve Irwin, famous crocodile hunter and the one who pioneered Australia Zoo, and not to mention Jane McGrath, wife of Glenn, one of the worlds famous and all-time highly ranked wicket takers of the game of cricket. Slot in Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, who left this world through ‘cardiac arrest’, and then you start to think.
These people, if they had their say, would’ve wanted to die because of natural causes…but sometimes life can be unscripted. How we deal with these issues needs to be right; we need to focus on God, on the maker and star-breather of the universe, but also the one who came to Earth in order save ourselves from judgement and ultimately death itself. And so each day God is telling us ‘My child, you have so much more to unravel, so much more to fully know and understand about this planet, so much more about the depths and crevasses of my unending love that you have not even fully understood or grasped to entirety’ and every day should be the day when we make this a priority in our lives. You sit down and ask God, ‘where do you want me to head?’ And sometimes you will get an answer, but think twice before you proclaim that it was God trying to speak to you. Because God has spoken and told us that in this life, many of our decisions, though we may think that we’re basing our choices on ‘the voice of God’, we may in fact be listening to our own conscience, or sometimes even the Devil himself. Satan loves it when we are led astray, he is like the wolf in sheep’s clothing, and sometimes in this world, we as a human race cannot tell the difference between truth, and lies. It is so nice and neatly packaged that we settle for the background, we settle with the potential that we’ve been tricked into believing is right for us. We don’t recognise that God’s potential for us is far beyond our wildest dreams.
So, you think; if God is saying that we should live life to the fullest, unleashing all our God-given potential instead of settling into the seat of conformity and acceptance; how are we supposed to do what God has placed on our hearts? I guess the answer to this is to understand that we all have talents, gifts, and aspirations, goals, dreams and the like. All we need to do is to pray, read His Word and God will give us pictures, signs, conformations that the road you’re going to travel on is the right one. We don’t need to give up any hope, because God is there every step of the way, probing, asking the tough questions, so that we can make the tough calls in life. I guess for me a tough call was what major I studied at university. Another would’ve been how to maintain the friendship with a friend, yet also care about the friend as well in regards to the choices they’re making and how to approach that with the sensitivity needed in order for the friendship to still be intact after such an encounter. But I guess in whatever you do, we should do it all, live life like there is no tomorrow, as if this was our last day on Earth. God will direct you, if you’re willing to open your eyes and look at the signs.
