REFLECTIONS

A Time to Die

The intersection no more than half a block ahead and the light green, I set my sights on making it through before it changed. Suddenly the flash of a speeding car crossed the intersection at a speed twice the speed limit. Only a half block from meeting my maker, I shuddered at what might have been. It was not my time to die.

Death is a subject usually avoided. Certainly, we don’t cast it in a positive vain. God gave us an unyielding will to live. Our bodies fight for it perhaps with more vigor than our minds. Life and death are intriguing mysteries. Both rest in the hands of God. Everyone who has ever lived has spent a lifetime trying to solve it. We try to figure out how to conquer life, how to succeed, how to get along, and how to stay strong. But without question, we try most to conquer death. In another Reflections, I once wrote:

Life begins in the womb. It is the place of a new creation. The womb offers all that is needed—food, shelter, comfort, and safety. A spirit becomes a new creation that grows and adapts to the world that surrounds it. Even if all is not perfect within the protected world Mom provides, that world is comfortable, happy and secure.

Then something happens. Change comes over everything. Unusual movement threatens security and with the disturbance birth begins. Questions must swirl about.  Is the world coming to an end, is existence going to cease, or is this event a removal from one world into a new one?  

As the struggle ensues, powerful forces press on the mortal being expelling it from its safe and secure world. It clings for safety, but is thrust through a cramped passageway perhaps bringing claustrophobic and suffocation sensations. Sounds change and anxiety may set in.

Then it’s over. Birth—the culmination of a process of growth and development that transforms a spirit from one state of being to another. With birth a new world is introduced. There is light brighter than ever seen before—and space, and peace. Safe sure hands draw a newborn near, and the warmth of a comforting body provides love beyond any ever known before. I think death may be like that too.

Jesus promised, “whoever lives and believes in me will never die.” (John 11:26) I believe this. Back at the intersection that day, God safely placed me a half block from death. It was not my time to die. More importantly, it was not my time to be born into God’s eternal home. When that time comes, his safe sure hands will draw me near.

And I will feel the warmth of his love beyond any I have ever known before.

You are the light of the world,

Richard +

www.reflectingthesavior.org.

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