I read some interesting advice the other day, which went like this; “you should not make any major decisions in life without walking around a graveyard”. Why, you might ask? Because death is the ultimate lens with which to view life.
Our pop culture has plenty to say about life, but very little to say about life lived in light of death. Our world is obsessed with all things “youth”. We shun the notion of death. We flee from it the way our great-grandparents blushed at the mention of sex. We justifiably speak today of past eras as times of repressed sexuality, but we fail to remember that people then were much more open about death than we are. Maybe our great-grandchildren will label us “death-repressed”. Maybe our cultural rush to lose ourselves in pleasure, to have more exciting experiences, to buy more stuff, to keep traveling is fueled by our unspoken and unrealised fear of death.
All this reminds me of a parable Jesus told of a rich man who lived a seemingly successful life, having to build bigger and bigger barns to store all his wealth (Luke 12:13-21). He was so rich that he retired early and took life easy – eating, drinking and being merry. Everyone around him thought he was a genius. But God called him a fool. Why? Because God knew this guy was about to die and that he wasn’t ready to meet his Maker.
Check out how Jesus wraps up the parable in Luke 12:21:
“This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.”
If only he had taken a walk through a graveyard. If only he had made his big life decisions in light of death. If only he had been rich toward God.
What about you? What big decisions do you have facing you at the moment? When I make decisions about my life I am very good at being rich towards myself, but I have to work really hard at being rich toward God. When I make decisions I normally consider the short term consequences, but often fail to think about the long term, eternal consequences.
Death is the ultimate lens through which to view life. Jesus is the ultimate answer to any question about life and death. So keep walking with Jesus, through all the big and small decision you make in life. And maybe a walk through a graveyard every now and then might help.