God and Mortality...

(This is the 4th in an ongoing series I've had in my head called "God and _____")

When I was younger, I, like most of us, never thought about death or the fact that any of our lives could end at literally any moment. A series of events over the past few years has caused me to rethink that. It's not that I sit around thinking "Hmm, when am I gonna die," but I am much more aware of my, and all of our, mortality, and the fact that none of us is promised even our next breath, much less tomorrow, or next month, or next year, or whatever else.

2006 was a hard year for my family. I lost a grandma and a grandpa on opposite sides of my family, and my wife also lost her last remaining grandparent. Her grandmother, and my grandmother who passed were both in very poor health. My grandfather who died was more unexpected...he had a heart attack while out walking, just around the corner from his front door. Later that same year, my dad...who like most dads to most of us, to that point, seemed fairly immortal...was surprisingly diagnosed with prostate cancer (he has fought it successfully by the way). Later that same summer, shortly after my younger son was born, my pastor, who is a mentor and father figure for me, had a bout with some fairly serious heart issues. Again, for the second time that summer, a Superman, a John Wayne in my life, was battling fairly serious health issues.

In 2009, we lost a student in our ministry to a freak drowning accident. Tracy also had an aunt have a stroke, and she is doing ok but is not the same as she was before. And a former student of mine lost her husband in a very tragic manner also. In 2010, another nearby youth ministry lost a student in a similar fashion to how we did in the sense of it being an out of nowhere freak incident. Another local school lost a student after losing a battle with health issues related to collapsing from heat during a summer football practice. And a friend from college lost her husband tragically in a car accident.

Before I entered ministry, I had been to maybe 5 or 6 funerals...in nearly 13 years of ministry, I bet I've been to 10 times that many now. We've lost some key men and women in our church in recent years, too many to recount. In the past year or so, we've had a couple of men diagnosed with terminal cancer, and just recently were blindsided by another slightly younger church member's terminal cancer diagnosis, a man who has been a huge supporter and encourager for me in my time here. And recently we found out another close friend and church member may have lupus.

Where am I going with all of this? A few quick thoughts. First, the sooner we get through our heads that we literally have NO idea how much time we have left, the sooner we can fully and truly live. From the moment we are born, we are, literally, like it or not, dying. We have a 1 in 1 chance of dying, unless Jesus comes back...that's 100%. Second, we need to learn to truly, as Kris Allen and Tim McGraw say, "Live like we are dying." We need to treat every moment and every opportunity and every time with someone as if it could be the last...because, well, it could be...right? As Chris Rice says, "Life means so much...every day is a fit that you've been given make the most of your time every minute you''re living." My wife and I have a thing, and have since early in our relationship, where EVERY time we leave, go to bed, hang up the phone, or whatever else, we say "I love you," because it truly could be the last time. We do the same with our kids. I do the same with my parents. I do the same with many of my close friends and with many of my students. I want to truly live and leave life with no regrets.

Finally, because we honestly have no idea how long we have or those around us have, we need to maximize the time we have with everyone, the impact we have on people, the opportunities we have to serve and make a difference and share our faith by actions and words. We need to stop living for selfish and trivial things and start living for the things that make a difference that lasts. We need to invest in people. We need to love. We need to fully live. We need to give ourselves to something that will outlast our lives. Live...and outlive your life...leave a legacy...be remembered far beyond this life because of what you do in this life and because you live for a purpose much greater, much bigger and much more lasting than yourself. Someday, it will all end...how will they remember you? Will we live with no regrets? None of us is immortal...what will we do with the time we have been given?

Soundtrack for a Note: The Hotshot Freight Train--Poetic Devices and Personal Vices album 

ps...The Bucket List movie, and Andrew Peterson's "Alaska or Bust" song keep running through my head too.