Our days are numbered before one of them came to be.
To live is Christ, to die is gain.
Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails.
A time to be born and a time to die.
Life is a sweet gift from God. It is also not a guarantee that we will awake tomorrow. Our days were sealed in God's master plan before one of them came to be...and God's plan is often different and earlier than we would plan.
We have had two deaths in our small church family in the past couple of weeks. One dear saint in his late 60's and, just this past week, a husband and father (in his early 50's) passed away, leaving behind his precious wife and 3 kiddos.
Their deaths have brought a soberness to our church family and to our home. We do not know how God will see best to glorify Himself in our lives and in our family. Paul said it may be by life or it may be by death. It's an overwhelming thought to my finite mind. Of course, as Elizabeth Elliot once said, "God's grace does not go where our thoughts often take us". His grace is sufficient for the tasks He has called us to, though they are vastly different from one person to the next.
"Christians claim to believe that heaven - being present with God - is so wonderful, and yet act as if going there were the greatest tragedy.....Death, for the believer, is no tragedy. And for the believer to die well -to live and die aiming to glorify God- confident that God will make good on all of His promises - this is a thing of great beauty." Joseph Bayly/Nancy Guthrie
I am so thankful for the precious words and testimonies of those that have gone before us...their thoughts on life and death, according to the Word of God, have encouraged my heart and challenged the fear that can creep up when I think of the death of a loved one. I can't tell you how thankful I am for the timing of a book that I read as part of a book club last month. I would not have picked the book on my own, and yet, the blessing it was (and is) to my own heart makes me want to buy everyone a copy and tell them to start reading right away!
"O Love That Will Not Let Me Go: Facing Death with Courageous Confidence in God" is a compilation of writings by Nancy Guthrie of various Puritans as well as contemporary teachers and preachers. Through these writings, we see the reality of death, the hope in death, the promise of our future, and the encouragement to persevere in the here and now. So rich!
RC Sproul Jr. lost his wife last December to cancer (and, I just found out, his daughter died this past week). He is well acquainted with grief and death yet his testimony exalts the greatness of God and the overflowing mercy and grace He gives in the face of some of life's greatest pain and heartache. His blog posts from last December and January were precious. Here are a couple:
What Now?
My better half
"A broken heart leads to the true contentment of asking less of this life because more is coming in the next...suffering hurries the heart homeward." Joni Eareckson Tada
I know that many of our hearts are breaking over the news of the past few weeks....but I pray that it leads us all homeward. As Thomas Boston said:
"Death will take you to your best Friend, the Lord Christ....it puts out your candle, (and) it will carry you where there is no night, where there is eternal day."
Come, Lord Jesus, come!
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