Dying Well

In the epic series the Lord of the Rings as their fortress is under siege about to be over-run by the forces of evil, Gandalf  the wizard and Pippin the hobbit are waiting for battle as the gates are being rammed and facing what appears will be certain death. 

Pippin:  I didn’t think it would end this way.

Gandalf:  End?  No, the journey doesn’t end here.  Death is just another path.  One that we all must take.  The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass… And then you see it.

Pippin:  What Gandalf?... See what?

Gandalf: White shores… and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise.

Pippin:(smiling) Well, that isn’t so bad.

Gandalf: No…No it isn’t.

Our existence goes beyond what is here.  We were created with more in store for us than just this life.  Understanding this life isn’t what we were created for, understanding that our lives here are preparing us for something much better ahead provides the basis for living well and looking towards dying well.  Living well means not getting trapped in the shallowness of this world that calls us to be something we were never meant to be.  Measuring ourselves against others to look better, be better, do better, know more, do more, and have more.  Living well means not being deceived to pursue the anxious, futile existence of pleasing ourselves, pleasing others, showing others I’m good, and trying to show God I’m good.   Living well is understanding the extremely simple, yet incredibly difficult to accept mystery, that Christ has rescued us.  He is the only door to the greatest treasures and unbelievable riches of wisdom and knowledge.  Dying well is the understanding that we have already died with Christ to this life and its shallowness and deceptions.  Dying well is our daily “putting to death” of our human cravings and desires replacing them with a true a hunger and thirst for righteousness.  Dying well is recognizing when it is our time it can welcomed rather than feared knowing the death of our physical body is not the end of our journey but just another path.  A path to a life we cannot fathom or imagine.

My goal is that they (you) may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they(you) may have  the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they(you) may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.  I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments.

So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in Him, rooted and built up in Him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority. In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh] was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. (Colossians  2:2-4, 6-7, 9-13)

Father, help me know You to such depths that I will not be afraid.  Amen

Scotty Elston
Shallowater, Texas

Life in Death

On January 6, 2012, my great-grandmother died. I’ve written about her once before specifically for Word for Today, but her life merits more than one day’s worth of contemplation. She went quietly with people who love her surrounding her little bed in the nursing home that she moved to a couple of months ago.

My dad told us around midnight that night when he got home from Abilene. The next morning I was putting laundry away in my 13-year-old sister’s room. I couldn’t help but notice this handwritten letter sitting on her bedside table:

Dear Scrapbook,

    Today was a special and memorable day. Today was the day my great-grandmother died. While I was at school doing things that didn’t hardly amount to anything, Daddy was in the presence of a courageous, strong, elderly lady...Granny. I will never forget this day--the day a sweet soul moved to her true “home, sweet, home.” I love Granny with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength. Granny is not just a regular person, but is now an angel in God’s kingdom.

Blessings Granny,

Kate

Pondering death is disconcerting. When I was very young, I went through a phase when the idea of death was terrifying. I wasn’t afraid of the process of dying. I was afraid of heaven. I was afraid of eternity. I was so afraid of these things that my young self was prepared to do whatever it took to stay alive. Because life was perfect then. This world was an adequate home. I didn’t need heaven. I didn’t need something better because this world was good enough.

Then I grew older. I experienced things that hurt my heart and my spirit. These wounds hurt a little more than the skinned knees that I cried over when I was much younger. This home started to feel uncomfortable.

I grew older still. The more I pursued the Lord, the more this world spit me out. I felt a hunger in myself and could find no satisfactory nourishment. The churning within me continued for years. I turned many places and none of them provided a proper dwelling for my spirit. My spirit always returned to the Lord, sometimes out of desire, sometimes out of necessity. The only thing that could provide snippets of satisfaction, inexpressible joy, and consistent hope was not of this world.

C.S. Lewis says it best in his book, Mere Christianity: “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.”

I can’t even begin to convey the atrocities that my great-grandmother experienced in her life. My feeble woes are small potatoes compared to hers. She was faithful to the Lord to the last day of her life. Her spirit transcended the devil’s throes because she remembered that she was made for another world. She knew pieces of that world through God’s blessings in this one. That, coupled with the knowledge of her salvation, kept her going to the very end. I look to her example to live my life in the same way--in pursuit of experiences in this world that draw my spirit closer to the next one. Because Jesus is Lord over both realms.

“Be still, my soul;

the Lord is on thy side.

Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain;

Leave to thy God, to order and provide;

In every change He faithful will remain.

Be still, my soul;

thy best, thy heavenly Friend

through thorny ways

leads to a joyful end.”

Amen.

Erin Daugherty, Abilene Christian University

Kate Daugherty, Stephenville, TX