You Are Going to Die.

How much do you think about that? It is certainly rare in this culture, even in the sub-culture of faith in which you often live, breath, and move.

And yet this is the ONE truth that is probably more important than any others, the one thing that can govern most everything thing else, if you let it.

Your human life on this planet will come to an end. There’s an expiration date on your breath, on your work, on your comings and goings.

Think about this, and then think about what you REALLY believe about it.

Does it produce anxiety? Anger? Fear?

It’s certainly understandable if those reactions are inside you. It’s no surprise. It’s difficult to think about saying goodbye, about leaving things undone, of time cycling on and leaving you as a memory or a footnote (at best).

The Hebrew Scriptures refer to it as “being gathered to your ancestors,” which is beautiful in and of itself, but death can be even more for you, more of an occasion for freedom and peace.

For you subscribe to a faith that says that death is TRULY a door to something else, even something MORE, and though you surely don’t know WHAT it looks like, you have SAID that you believe it.

This does not change the fact that it may be difficult to process “the last frontier” (and hopefully you will have ample time to do so), but if you CHOOSE, you can allow death’s reality to become the ultimate clarifying thought:

What do you believe about the world? Is this really it, or is there something more that is waiting for you on the other side?

In WHATEVER time you may have left, what is worth your focus and energy?

Can you embrace it, even look forward to it when your time comes, trusting that there can be no resurrection—NEW life—without releasing your hold on the old one?

It’s the core promise of the life you profess to lead, to aspire to.

PS Some may say that this is ridiculously ill-timed for Christmas (“read the room!”), but I would disagree. I believe that every day of our life is a cycle of Advent/Christmas/Epiphany/Lent/Pentecost (plus a LOT of “Common Time”).

We are invited to live the fullness of the Christian year (not the culture’s) each day of our life.