When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child does. But when I grew up, I put away childish things (1 Corinthians 13:11, NLT). When I was young I was afraid of dying. I was claustrophobic and scared of the dark. Just the idea of being buried sent me into a panic. I would tell my mother if I died, please dont bury me, but just prop me up against a tree in the back yard. Sounds silly, but thats what I told her. As I entered my teenage years, the fear of dying and the dark didnt subside. I was active in church, hearing the Word and had accepted Jesus into my heart when I was 12. Still, I couldnt shake the fear of dying. When I was about 13 or 14, a group of my friends from church and I were riding around with my best friends older sister. It was after dark and someone in the car had the bright idea of driving through the cemetery. I was mortified, but not much I could do since I was a passenger. As we drove slowly through the cemetery, one of the boys in the car said he wanted to get out. I knew I wasnt stepping one foot out of that car. The car came to a stop and a few of the boys got out and began walking through the gravestones. My heart was beating harder and harder in my chest. I just wanted them to get back in the car. As one of them disappeared into the darkness, we heard a holler and he came running back toward the car. He had almost fallen into a freshly dug hole. Everyone was laughing, but me. I couldnt laugh and wanted out of that place even more. It wasnt until years later, when I was in my early 30s, that something changed. God changed the way I looked at dying. It wasnt about being buried, it was about spending eternity in heaven. I read the scripture in II Corinthians 5:6-9, which says, Now we look forward with confidence to our heavenly bodies, realizing that every moment we spend in these earthly bodies is time spent away from our eternal home in heaven with Jesus. We know these things are true by believing, not by seeing. And we are not afraid but are quite content to die, for then we will be at home with the Lord. So our aim is to please Him always in everything we do, whether we are here in this body or away from this body and with Him in heaven. I realized that whatever happens to my earthly body doesnt matter because I will have a new body in heaven. I dont have to fear dying or being buried. This was part of my spiritual growth and development. God wants us to grow and mature as Christians, but to do that, weve got to let Him speak to us through the Word. I had the opportunity to share the same scripture with my daddy. My daddy and my son were fishing a few years ago and daddy asked my son, how many stops do you think we make before we get to heaven? I wrote II Corinthians 5:6-9 on an index card and gave it to him. I told him to put it in his Bible so when he needs assurance, he can read those verses. We all want the assurance that when we take our last breath on this earth, we will open our eyes in the presence of Jesus. And we dont need to be afraid.
Posted on: Tue, 11 Mar 2014 14:51:48 +0000
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