Thursday is my birthday and I will be 74 years old.

Patty and I are 20 years old in the black and white picture. Whoooeeeeee a lot of difference in 54 years.

I have never thought a whole lot about dying. I have thought about heaven and what it will look like and the judgment seat of Christ a lot, but recently I have wondered how I will die, what the whole experience will feel like, what I will be thinking, sensations that I will have, if it will be quick or drawn out. It is like thinking about my first time skydiving. I wasn’t afraid but there was all the questions in my mind of the unknown. I am not afraid of dying, and when I think about it there is no apprehension, just wonder, because it certainly will be a first time experience for me. I wonder about why God put it together the way He did with all the variations of death. If God would give me the choice of dying or being raptured which would I take? I would take getting raptured in a heart beat, why? I am not sure, except that the rapture is going to be a big group experience, and it sounds pretty exciting the way it is described in the Bible.

I was talking to a guy a couple of months ago who was absolutely paranoid about his death. He was afraid of COVID, of cancer, and fretted and worried about every ache or pain he had. I thought, wow, that would be a sad way to live your life. It would be hard to enjoy your life if you were always in a knot about it ending at any moment.

I think a lot of people who think that they are born again, in God’s family, headed for heaven aren’t really. They have a pseudo salvation based on an experience, poor teaching, or a cultural upbringing that convinced them they are in when in fact they are not. I think that the nearer we get to the time of our death that the reluctance to think and ponder about it is a hint that we should be worried about it. When the Spirit of God truly dwells in us as a child of God I am thinking that there will be a confident calmness and a positive expectation of a incomprehensible future. This passage written by the Apostle Paul describes my thinking.

Philippians 1:21-23 For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. But if I am to live on in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor for me; and I do not know which to choose. But I am hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better;