Life and Death

On a recent Saturday, we attended two memorial services, both former co-workers of ours who left this earth far too young, in my opinion. These men were not much older than my husband, and it was heartbreaking to see the grieving widows, children, grandchildren and friends they left behind. I don’t like to think about my death or my husband’s death, but after two services in one day, what else could I think about?!

If I knew I had five years left, how would I live my daily life? What if I only had one year? What if I knew my husband only had a few years? How do we truly live our lives to the fullest and make the most of our time together? What would I regret if I (or my husband) were suddenly at death's door? Do we need to sit down and make a list of places we need to go and things we need to do? Oh, and I definitely need to go through those boxes of old junk in the attic and get rid of my teenage journals so no one reads them and finds out how ridiculous I was back then!

And what about my own memorial service? Who will speak? What will people say about me when I’m gone? I can imagine someone blunt enough to speak the truth, “LeAnn meant well, she had a lot of good intentions that she never followed through with. She was always really busy but she didn’t actually seem to accomplish much, bless her heart.”

So I was thinking and fretting a little and asking God to give me wisdom and direction.  And then I went to church the next morning. Have you ever gone to church and discovered that the morning’s message was just for you? It wasn’t immediately apparent to me as Pastor Nathan introduced the day’s scripture, Psalm 90, written by Moses out of the depths of his disappointment that he would not get to enter the Promised Land. He gave a brief synopsis of the story of Moses, then said he would be talking about three truths from Psalm 90 that would help us walk by faith through life’s many seasons of ups and downs. (Oh and I didn’t even the mention the funny part about Moses’ BHAG, as well as Nathan’s wife’s BHAG. What’s a BHAG, you ask? But I digress, that’s not the point of this post. Or, maybe it is. Hmmm.  Well, you can listen to the sermon here.  (You really should. I've listened to it a couple times just for fun. It's easy, put it on your iPhone and time will just fly by as you clean toilets and do the dishes!)

Anyway, as I followed along with the reading of Psalm 90, I think my jaw dropped as we went through all this great stuff. We’re talking about the numbering our days so that we can be wise! We’re actually talking about facing our death!

Psalm 90

A prayer of Moses, the man of God.

1 Lord, through all the generations

    you have been our home!

2 Before the mountains were born,

    before you gave birth to the earth and the world,

    from beginning to end, you are God.

3 You turn people back to dust, saying,

    “Return to dust, you mortals!”

4 For you, a thousand years are as a passing day,

    as brief as a few night hours.

5 You sweep people away like dreams that disappear.

    They are like grass that springs up in the morning.

6 In the morning it blooms and flourishes,

    but by evening it is dry and withered.

7 We wither beneath your anger;

    we are overwhelmed by your fury.

8 You spread out our sins before you—

    our secret sins—and you see them all.

9 We live our lives beneath your wrath,

    ending our years with a groan.

10 Seventy years are given to us!

    Some even live to eighty.

But even the best years are filled with pain and trouble;

    soon they disappear, and we fly away.

11 Who can comprehend the power of your anger?

    Your wrath is as awesome as the fear you deserve.

12 Teach us to realize the brevity of life,

    so that we may grow in wisdom.

13 O Lord, come back to us!

    How long will you delay?

    Take pity on your servants!

14 Satisfy us each morning with your unfailing love,

    so we may sing for joy to the end of our lives.

15 Give us gladness in proportion to our former misery!

    Replace the evil years with good.

16 Let us, your servants, see you work again;

    let our children see your glory.

17 And may the Lord our God show us his approval

    and make our efforts successful.

    Yes, make our efforts successful!

I was so excited that this subject was being discussed and eagerly dug for the little spiral I had finally remembered to put in my purse so I could take notes instead of scribbling on miscellaneous scraps of paper found in its depths.

The first point: God is Big. Really Big. He is infinite, he is powerful, he is all knowing. The contrast between God and our measly 70 or 80 years of toil and trouble is pretty striking. We are small. But we tend to live our lives as though we are big and he is small, fitting him into our story instead of looking for how we fit into his story. Ponder: Is God big in my life? If so, how am I serving him?

God is big. We are small. So serve Him.

The second lesson: Life is Short, so Get Wise! Moses asks God to teach us to number our days so we can get a heart of wisdom. So we are supposed to meditate on the brevity of life. (I’m not crazy, I’ve actually been obeying scripture!) If I own the fact that I’m going to die someday, it will help me get wise. Nathan took this as a personal challenge to look his own death in the face and related how he embarked on a Google search that had me laughing so hard I forgot to be depressed about our impending deaths for about five minutes. He spoke of sitting at a computer screen watching the seconds of his life counting down, which brought him to a similar point where I was when I walked in the door. If you knew exactly how many days you had left, it would affect the way you spend those days. It would affect the way you spend your time, your resources, and what your priorities are.

How am I spending my life? It’s short, so get wise.

Thirdly, God is Good, and He can be trusted. Moses cries out to God to return and satisfy him in the morning with his steadfast love.  He recognized that true lasting satisfaction doesn’t come from a place or thing, not from realizing dreams and goals, but from his friendship with God.  Moses ends with a future oriented prayer that God’s work and power would be shown to his servants and their children. “God’s work and glorious power has been made known to us in Jesus in a story even more powerful than the delivery from Egypt. Because our powerful God came to earth as a servant and died on the cross, when we face death someday it doesn’t need to be the end. In Jesus, the Everlasting numbered his days so that our days could become everlasting. That is a steadfast love that satisfied; glorious power that shatters our disappointments; glorious news worth rejoicing with glad hearts. “ WOW!

God is good, and he can be trusted indeed.

Ok, I can check one thing off my list. Funeral plan: Ask Nathan to speak on Psalm 90. (Be sure to include the funny stuff, Nathan!)

The last part of the chapter (v. 14-17) resonated deep within me.  Here is a plan to live life to the fullest.  So often I am crazy busy doing so many things that I love with people that I love while neglecting things and people that I don’t love and feeling guilty about things that I should do but fail to get around to, as well as being annoyed that I can’t get my job done in eight hours a day so that I could have more time to do what I want to do. I just can’t seem to find the right balance of priorities.

Over the past couple of weeks, I have read and listened to this Psalm numerous times, praying these verses at the start of my days.  I created this paraphrase on a photo of a wonderful sunrise at Crater Lake and am planning to pick it up from Costco tomorrow, frame it and hang it next to my mirror where I will see it every morning.

As I continue to think about priorities and how I should live so I don’t have regrets should I unexpectedly face the end of my life here on earth, I keep finding myself confronted with situations that make me recognize how thoughtless and selfish I am, forcing me to choose between a good or a best, an easy or a hard. I would like to conclude this by saying that I have it all figured out and will live a life of perfect prioritizing from now on. Though I am often unrealistically optimistic, I am not a liar, thus I shall not make that preposterous statement! 

The other thing I wish I could do is wrap this up by sharing my own BHAG. I’ve been thinking about that too, what is my own personal Big Hairy Audacious Goal? I have finally come to the conclusion that  as an old-fashioned 57-year-old woman, I am just not cool enough to pull that one off. Everything I come up with sounds trite and ridiculous. Kind of like when I found myself on a Hood to Coast team named “Embrace the Suck”. Are you kidding me, I tried to forbid my children to even use that word back in the day. But when I found myself running on steamy Portland streets in 97 or was it 98 degree sunshine, the phrase became very real and personal to me, and I am now accepting it as a very valid and helpful motto in many of life’s situations. Oh but I digress, how far off track I have fallen once again.

What I really, really want when I reach the end of my life is to know that I will spend eternity not only with God, the amazing Creator of this incredible universe and my best friend, but that my family and friends; all the people I love, will be there to enjoy it with me someday. As I hear many times on Sunday mornings, Jesus didn’t come to make bad people good, he came to make dead people alive.  Eternally alive.  Death is not the end. Because of that, the fact that I am somewhat older than middle-aged and have a husband who is way older than middle-aged (sorry sweetheart), knowing that death could surprise either one of us at any time doesn’t totally suck after all (excuse my language), though I don't make light of how devastating the loss of a loved one truly is. Thank God, death is not the end.

“For God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:1