There are times in life where we experience streaks of good things or bad things. If it is a streak of good things, we feel great, grow in confidence that life is good and that we are blessed. And sometimes we get to the point of thinking, “what could go wrong?” Then there are those stretches where it seems things never go right. The dishwasher breaks down. A week later, you’re told your car needs $2000 in repairs. On top of that, a dear friend announces she is moving out of state. And then you or a family member needs to go to the ER.

We have all experienced these streaks of both blessings and, what we may feel are, curses in our lives. I have been on one of those in the past several months—one of people I know dying or nearing death. I have written twice recently (Darkness, Name Calling) about a former student losing her battle with cancer. But weeks before that, another former student, a new mom, died unexpectedly. And just this week, my wife and I received the news that a friend is now in hospice care. And though not directly connected to me, news came recently that good friends will be caring for several children whose mom suddenly died and whose dad needs to attend to funeral arrangements. 

Of course, people are dying every day. It’s just that we are oblivious to it until it hits closer to home. A late colleague used to call death an “intruder.” It interrupts our normal sense of life and reminds us of our mortality. After thinking about death so much in the past couple of months, I would call it “the great leveler.” What I mean is that death eventually comes to us all. Whether we are rich or very poor, whether we hold some lofty, powerful position or reside on the lower rungs of influence, we all will face the end of our lives. The famous die as do the beautiful. The horrid oppressor will, too, one day pass from this world. Absolutely no one is exempt.

I think this should be a reminder to hold loosely those goals we have in life and, what goals we do have, to make sure they align with what has eternal value. In my upcoming book about the spiritual insights I have learned from the lives of college students, I point out how often the focus of parents is to get their children in a good position to receive scholarships for college, while their focus on helping their kids truly learn how to follow Jesus is pushed aside. What in essence they are doing is preparing their kids for worldly success while forgetting that it will one day all pass away in death. Jesus reminds us of the dangers of this thinking in his parable of the rich man:

And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’

Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’

But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’

This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.” (Luke 12:16-21)

He also tells us this: 

Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.For whoever wants to save their lifewill lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it.What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? (Mark 8:34-36)

Death can come at any time. We need to be ready for it, and we need to be preparing our children for it by helping them to focus on things of eternal value. Yes, get them ready for college if that is the plan, but do it in a way that does not lead them away from the faith, as has long been the case with 50%-75% of students raised in Christian homes and local churches.

Even if you, or your kids, reach the pinnacle of worldly success, it will have no value on the other side of the eternal divide if deep and abiding faith is absent. Every time someone close to you dies, with that comes a reminder that you are no different than anyone else, regardless of your worldly status or success. We humans are all on the same level. Thus, it is best if we all strive to gain in this life what is of value in the next, and that we pass this along to our children. 

©Jim Musser 2021 All Scripture references are from the New International Version, 2011.