Squeaky joints.
Dizzy spells.
Freaky pains.
Quick heartbeats.
Crazy ideas what these might portend.
Nuh-uh. Can't eat that. That either.
The bloodwork. The CAT scans. The call from your doc.
Then there are the talks about what you've accumulated.
Who gets what.
How much goes where.
What to do with what.
Where to put things in.
Why.
Of course the stuff that comes with the territory.
More references to "Back in the day"
The Sunday radio oldies are much more familiar than it used to.
You call everyone not your age "anak".
"Back in the day" when we'd think about dying it would be because of some freak plane crash or nuclear explosion, or some cataclysmic event caused by the alignment of the planets, or World War III, but never because of growing old and well, dying. Then it was always someone else, someone distant, and definitely someone older.
But since you're where you may not have expected to be, dying begins to be more of a personal experience. Every so often you hear about a contemporary of yours succumbing to his battle with the sickness. The elders whose funerals you attend are only a few years your senior. You begin to "feel things", the way you'd hear your parents talk about the same thing. "Inheritance planning" piques your interest. Existentialist questions aren't as flippant as you once considered it was.
I've been to enough funeral services where the preacher would eulogize about the dead person "serving God's purposes" before he died, and have preached about that enough myself in Acts 13. But as one day it will be my turn to be in the box, these lines take on a different meaning.
What does it mean to "serve God's purposes in your generation?" (Acts 13:36)
Songwriter (and mentor) Rich Mullins may have grappled with the same question, and had this to say:
"So much life is slipping past you,
You better sink in and take a hold
So many things you say you think you'd like to do
About the things you think you know
Well, that road that's paved with good intentions
May never reach the streets of gold.
The things you grab will never last you
Once they get you in their hold
What once were your slaves become your masters
They burn you up and leave you cold
And eventually wrote the lines from which this post is named:
Live like you'll die tomorrow, die knowing you'll live forever;
Love like you'll leave tomorrow, believing love lasts forever
in other words, Live Right.
God has purposes for me in my generation - to honor Him.
His purposes for me are not for my generation alone, it extends to the next one.
He has set a destiny for me, knowing that one day, I, too, will die;
But not before that destiny is fulfilled.
Just like the omens of our mortality meet us at every corner, threats to the very lives of the first followers of Christ were a fairly regular occurrence. But since they were living out God’s purposes for their generation, knowing that one day their lives, too, would end, they went right on living right – honoring their Lord by speaking to others about Him, damn the consequences. This “knowing,” seemed to give them a pristine clarity that enabled them to see through the fog of death. They drew strength to stay the course, and energized them with a “joy unspeakable and full of glory”.
I need to live out my sermon. There remain God’s purposes in my life, the limitations of growing old notwithstanding. The generation of my own, and the generation that is next. I begin to write my epitaphs now, so no falsehoods need be written by someone else later.
Live like you leave tomorrow.
