Facing the inevitable realities nobody can avoid

I’ve had the experience often enough to know the life that comes from death: a man or a woman clutching at a wooden cross, clinging to life by a thread, deep into a journey of palliative care therapy, agonising over regrets and begging God’s forgiveness.

On death’s bed, but, for the first time, approaching real life.

People such as these — ready to be forgiven — needing to be forgiven — usually receive that forgiveness, because they need it so badly.  People such as these represent every single one of us when we’re honest.  There are always things we’d like to have a do-over for.

God’s forgiveness in Christ was done once, for all — and it is claimed, for all people who want it, for all eternity.

Facing the interminable status or fact of death forces us to stare over the precipice with a longing that we ourselves cannot quench or satisfy.  We can deny the truth no longer.

Life is where dreams go to die — dreams, in this case, are those events in all our lives that we wish were just dreams, that are actually nightmares — things others did to us or things we did to others, from unkindnesses to much worse.  God can only heal us as we face what wasn’t a dream, but a nightmare.

We can pretend all we like, but it doesn’t help us when we’re about to face God; a prospect none of us can deny this side of the eternal divide.

Am I trying to scare you?  Those scared by this, those who take this seriously, are those prepared to do what can only be done in the land of the living.

Those who mock will not listen and they will face the truth on the other side.  There is nothing sadder, because for every moment of turning away, of refusing to face, we remain captive when we could otherwise be freed.

~

An enduring memory I have is of a late seventies man, ravaged with cancer, living his very last hours, and tearfully and fearfully regretful.  It was holy ground I stood on as I walked into his hospital room that Saturday afternoon years ago.  I relied prayerfully on everything I did and spoke — reverence and awe for the moment.  The fear of the Lord was in and about the room like it was palpable.  The Spirit had come close to this man.

There in the room with the man and I were a couple of family members who were silent and sorrowful. The man could only be comforted by them for a short time.  His real peril wasn’t physical.  It was intensely spiritual, and he was doing, or had done, business with God.

He didn’t need much from me other than a reassurance that his business with God was done, it was good enough, the assurance of divine forgiveness.  I prayed as I was led, believing in my heart that this man was God’s.

I learned a couple of hours later that the man had passed away peacefully.  I was in awe of what God had had me experience in that room with the man and his family members.  It was as if I’d done nothing, I merely cooperated with the Spirit who had filled that room.

There is a place like this for each one of us; a place where we come to meet Truth.

Not a truth we can devise, convenient to our own plotting, but a truth that is incontrovertible — a truth we all tend to shy away from.

The purpose of life is achieved when we face that truth.  That truth matters.  Justice on earth is peace in the heavenly realms.

Of course, God gives each of us a gift for seeing the wisdom of this; God’s Spirit lives in us, guides and protects us, and justice and compassion then become our way.

The purpose of life is achieved when we face truth. 

Photo by Tengyart on Unsplash