In The Moment

When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over agian in a different way.  Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.

~Tecumseh~ 

I don't think of dying all too much.  Probably for a damn good reason.  For what sane person would contemplate their own demise if they didn't necessarily need to?  A soldier on the battlefield, that I can understand.  One who knowingly stands on that precipice of life and death, I could accept such a person contemplating their own ending.  No, that's not my thing.  For the most part I tend to live in the moment that I am in, choosing instead to look towards what might be...what could be.  After all, are we not told in scripture not to be too ambitious in our plans for the future?  In fact, James warns us that we ultimately do not know what tommorow will bring {James 4:13}.  If you ask me, that's just common sense thinking.  Is it wise for me to plan for a future that may not exist tommorow?  What of all those Carpe Diem "Sieze the day" folks who celebrate the idea of living for the moment?  Indeed, tommorow may never come so shouldn't we live our lives to the fullest while we can?  Live for the moment?  I find it interesting in James 4 that he would add a phrase which is key to this discussion of living in the moment with no worries of tommorow.  As James tells us when we choose to look forward to tommorow we should be asking ourselves "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that" {James 4:15}.  Now we begin to see that we have no need to fear the coming tommorow, or death for that matter.  

I don't know nothing bout' tommorow

I've been lost in yesterday

I've spent all my life just dying for a love that passed away

there's an end to all my sorrows

This is the only price I'll pay

I'll be a happy man when I go

And I can't wait another day

~Killing Time Clint Black~ 

I believe that there is a reason that James warned against our making plans for our future.  For it is not we ourselves who are in control of the events which affect our lives, but our heavenly Father.  Everything that we do and each step that we take has been lovingly planned by Him according to His purpose {Ephesians 2:10}.  Indeed, I have written before on the folly of independent self thinking.  Those thoughts we entertain that tell us that we ourselves are in control of our lives and all that surrounds us.  This is the lie of satan which he cunningly used at the fall of man into sin {Genesis 3:5}.  Honestly, there is NOTHING in our lives which our heavenly Father has not set in motion.  From that very moment which He breathed into us the breath of life {Genesis 2:7}, we became His creation created in His image.  There is nothing independent at all about this life we live.  Wise is that man who comes to this realization.  

I said that I don't think of my own demise all too much, for good reason.  For He in whose image I am created has also reserved my place in His eternity.  This shell, this flesh container which encases my spirit identity is but my temporary home.  For my one true home is with my Lord in heaven.

9A man’s heart plans his way, But the LORD directs his steps.

Proverbs 16: 9 NKJV 

~Scott~