When I was a kid my sister’s and I used to make up games. We would let our imaginations run wild playing our versions of “doctor”, “teacher”, “Barbie’s”, and “house”. We loved to create together. Our favorite game to play, especially when a Babysitter came over for the night, was a game we made up called “Alone in the Dark.” We saved this game for the nights our parents went out because it was great to have someone who was getting paid the big bucks to play with us and offer themselves up to be ‘it’. The person who was ‘it’ in “Alone in the Dark” had to close their eyes and try to tag us as we ran away and hid. We could throw blankets or pillows across the room to make a noise somewhere else to send the ‘it’ person off of our course. We could crawl, jump, climb and hide under anything in the room. What’s the catch? It was all played in the dark. The second the light switch was turned off it was game on. And, if you wanted to pause the game or declare game over, you had the power to flip the light switch on.
For the next few minutes, I am about to turn on the switch in your mind regarding a topic that we typically ‘shut off’. It’s a well known fact that is rarely talked about. Are you ready for it? You are going to die one day. In fact, in one hundred and fifty years, every single person alive on the earth right now will be dead! In some of my English classes in University we read depressing, old poems about death being the greatest equalizer. This means that it comes for everyone without exception: death doesn’t distinguish you by your race, age, geographical location, economic status, gender, or any other factor. In the end our bodies will all end up in the same place. As the Bible reminds us: humans were made from dust at the creation of the World and to the dust we will return.
DEATH IS A DIFFICULT TOPIC
I hesitate to talk about such a heavy topic for two reasons. First, no one likes to talk about death! No one wants to be THAT person. You know, the one that walks into the room with an Eeyore sized rain cloud above their head? But today I am going to put myself in that position. Grab your umbrellas, folks! I am hoping that, despite its usual reputation, this ‘death’ conversation will leave you encouraged enough to glimpse the rainbow just beyond the greying rain clouds.
Second, I hesitate to write about death because, for the last few years I have struggled with this reality in my own heart. Death is stupid. Personally, I haven’t had many people that I am close to pass away, but I can tell you that what I have seen, I don’t like. I know that it is a part of the life cycle – I get it. I just can’t fathom life moving on without some of the people I treasure most. After Byron’s grandmother passed away a few years ago at the age of 92 when her apartment caught fire, I haven’t been able to shake the horrible feeling of receiving that 2:00 am phone call again. This past summer our church family suffered a tragic loss: a longstanding church family member, a middle aged, healthy mom passed away in a tragic accident. No matter how much I trust in and love Jesus, these situations and the many people that I will lose to the inevitability of death in the future still sucks. Death sucks.
And I fear my own death. Not the actual death part, as I have full confidence and assurance in Jesus’ promises for me, but the dying part. Will it be painful? Will I be scared? I have heard our lives explained with this imagery: we have all been given, from our first day, a sand timer. Each person’s timer is filled with different amounts of sand. Some are filled to the brim! And some, with only a few grains. How much sand do I have in my timer? The answer for each of us is this: the amount of sand that the Lord has decided to give.
THE MORTALITY SWITCH
I don’t know about you, but thinking about all of these things all of the time has the ability to send me into a full on panic. The fear and frustration of the unknown here can cripple us. But, we live our lives not thinking about it most the time. It is when we are confronted with mortality itself, either our own or another’s, that we turn the ‘mortality switch’ on. When our alarms go off each day, our first thought as we tear back the sheets and stretch is not often: “Today I might die.” Most of the time, unless we are forced to think about it, that switch stays off.
This shut off switch is both a blessing and a curse. It’s a blessing because it lets us live our lives each day without fear. We can go to work, clean our house, play with our kids, enter into the grind of each day without a second thought to which day will be the end or what it might look like. Similarly, mothers will mostly forget the pain of childbirth shortly after they have their baby. If they remembered in great detail every feeling of pain from their labor, the human race would’ve died out by now! No woman would’ve dared to do such a thing again. This means that somewhere in the brain there is a clever ‘forget this’ switch. The switch turns on and we can remember all the trauma, pain and our inevitable death. The switch turns off and we don’t think about it. Out of sight, out of mind. However, there is a reason God wired us with this switch. After all, it is a good thing to not let the reality of our mortality hinder us constantly. Otherwise we might just be walking around like zombies who have already succumbed to their eventual fate!
The downside in always having the switch off? We are reckless. Either we live our lives on auto pilot, not finding joy and taking for granted each moment of life, or we make careless, reckless decisions with ourselves, others and our time. When the switch is turned off we think we have forever . . . until we don’t. And too often we do not recognize that reality until it’s too late.
“Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.”
James 4:14
TURN YOUR MORTALITY SWITCH ON . . . WITHOUT FEAR
According to what we know about ourselves and about humanity, it would be unwise to never consider our mortality. The feeling of invincibility can lead to some pretty dark places. God knew that we needed this reminder, and so often through His Word, He shares that Truth. Our mortality is not something to be feared, but rather it is simply something to be remembered.
“Teach us to number our days carefully so that we may develop wisdom in our hearts.”
Psalm 90: 12
How can we live in that healthy space in our minds with the mortality switch on, yet without constant fear of what that means? One answer: Jesus. Jesus defeated death. He didn’t just take our sin away (as if that wasn’t already enough!). But the fact that He rose again after dying defeated all of the ‘laws’ of death. The law of death states that you are born, you live and eventually you die. That’s it. Period.
There was no secret or special clause to change or manipulate that rule . . . that is, until Jesus. Now, if you take your magnifying glass out and look at the fine print, the law of death is not final . . . it now reads: “You are born, you live, and you die. IF, however, you have decided to trust Jesus Christ to be Lord of your life you will live forever with Him in Heaven. Death no longer has the final word for it has been conquered for you” (and yes, I am totally picturing Tim Allen reading the fine print “Santa Clause” business card in the movie Santa Clause). Because Jesus demolished the power of death through defying its law and coming back to life, we can also ask Him to demolish the powerful hold death has on us. In Psalm 90:2, David asks God to “teach us”. There is a wise way to live where we will know our days are numbered and yet live without fear in God’s perfect love. And God knows how to lead us into that. The hardest, and yet also in some senses the easiest thing we can do, is trust Him and know that everything that God does is full of overflowing and perfect love . . . especially when it comes to His people.
“He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken.”
Isaiah 25:8
A few years ago I had to drive up to Canmore for a conference for new pastors. I was looking forward to going, but I was really nervous about two things: not knowing anyone else and driving there. Leading up to this day I had nightmares of getting into a brutal car accident and dying. Like actually really horrible, graphic, and terrifying nightmares where I would wake up crying. I was so fearful to go because my death switch was turned on . . . and not in the healthy, wisdom filled, God way, but in the incapacitated by fear way. When I finally made it to Canmore (safely I might add), I ended up telling one of the girls that I was sharing a room with about this gripping fear of death that I was holding on to. She said something wise that has stuck with me to this day: “Do you believe that God loves you perfectly? God’s perfect love, through Jesus is always unconditional towards you – you know that! This means that, even in your dying moment, God will show you perfect and complete love. You just have to trust in Him and in who He is as love.” God will love me perfectly even in death? God will even love those that I love perfectly in their death? Yes, beyond what I can comprehend. This means that our life sand timers are filled with the perfect, loving amount. Any less or any more sand and it wouldn’t be the perfect loving amount that God has for us. And in that, we have to trust.
THE COMFORT OF PSALM 139
Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I stand up; you understand my thoughts from far away. You observe my travels and my rest; you are aware of all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue, you know all about it, Lord. You have encircled me; you have placed your hand on me. This wondrous knowledge is beyond me. It is lofty; I am unable to reach it. Where can I go to escape your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there . . . For it was you who created my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I will praise you because I have been remarkably and wondrously made. Your works are wondrous, and I know this very well. My bones were not hidden from you when I was made in secret, when I was formed in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw me when I was formless; all my days were written in your book and planned before a single one of them began. God, how precious your thoughts are to me; how vast their sum is! If I counted them, they would outnumber the grains of sand; when I wake up, I am still with you.”
Psalm 139:1-8, 13-18
Read the words of Psalm 139. In the face of choosing to think on and turn this mortality switch on, soaking in these words is like a warm, candle lit bubble bath after a crisp, fall walk. The comfort? God made you and He knows you so intimately because He created you to be the special and wonderful kind of person that you are. He knows what’s best for you and He promises to see that through. And, He loves you so unconditionally and with an unbreakable, covenantal promise that nothing can separate you from Him – especially not death.
“And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow – not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.”
Romans 8:38
The grains of sand in our personal sand timer of life might be numbered, but the grains of sand representing the love that God has for us? They cannot be counted. And that, my friend, is the rainbow at the end of this difficult, dreary and ‘rainy’ conversation.
Written by: Justine Joy
Refined Joy 