THE SHEPHERD’S CORNER

In one of his sermons, Billy Graham said, “I am prepared to die—in fact, I am looking forward to it—and when you are prepared to die, you are also prepared to live.” What a profound statement! Oh yes, we can only live to the fullest and to the deepest if we live with death in view because death—what happens to us when and after we die—sheds light to life. In other words, we’d understand more of the meaning of life if we understand the meaning of death.

The other day I met a friend whom I have known from my early days of ministry in Indonesia almost three decades ago. Needless to say, he is now almost as old as I am. At the end of our meeting we, then, began exchanging news about our health. After I shared with him my health condition, he, then, told me that he, too, would be undergoing medical check-up to determine the nature of the lump that the doctors have found. We smiled as we talked about how at this age sicknesses begin to come knocking at our doors.

But there was something else he said that struck a note in me. As he has been made more conscious of his remaining time on earth, he is now thinking more of how he can best serve God. He, then, told me what he’d like to do for God. You see, all this time he has actively been engaged in various ministries in his capacity as a layman; it’s not like he has been wasting his life. Not at all. But now as death begins to loom in the horizon, he is more hard-pressed to, in the words of Moses in Psalm 90:12, “number his days.”

We all should begin to number our days, not because we know when we will die but rather because we know that we will die. Moses reminds us that by numbering our days shall we, then, be able to “gain a heart of wisdom.” Prepared to die, prepared to live.

Pastor Paul