Rural Roadways
I grew up in a small town in southwestern Colorado called Pagosa Springs. When I say grew up, I spent my teen years there. When you think of quintessential small mountain town in Colorado, Pagosa fits that bill pretty well.
Late spring of my junior year, I was giving my crush a ride home. I learned to drive in Pagosa, and like anyone who learns to drive in a small town, I knew the roads in town and in the area like the back of my hand. I was very familiar with the main road that ran through town. Pagosa, like pretty much every rural town, had a highway that went through it, and that was the main street. I also knew the traffic patterns and the choke points for traffic and what time of day I could expect traffic to back up in certain places.
My crush lived in a rural area outside of town and we were about halfway there. I had gotten to the edge of town and we hit one of the choke points that I knew traffic backed up around the end of the school day, when people were picking up their kids from school. I saw traffic stop ahead of me, and then it looked like traffic started moving again, so I looked down to mess with my radio. Out of the corner of my eye I saw my crush tense up, put her hands up by her face, and put her feet up on the dashboard. I looked up and I saw brake lights and a line of cars stopped in front of me. It’s a two lane highway. I had nowhere to go.
Charles Darwin said,
“A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.”
I’m traveling 60 miles an hour, a line of stopped cars in front of me, approaching fast. My crush is in the passenger seat.
I swung out into the oncoming lane, hoping I could go around. There’s a car coming in that lane. Not an option. Bar ditch on the right side of the road. If I take the ditch, I will definitely roll the car. I did the only thing that I could do – locked up the brakes and hoped that we would be okay when I hit the car in front of me. When I collided with the car in front of us, we were doing about 35.
I don’t remember the crash itself. I do remember after the car stopped moving, looking over at my crush and seeing her breathe out a cloud of chalky dust that comes from when an airbag deploys. I remember telling my crush to get out of the car and getting out myself. In my head, I knew that we shouldn’t stay in there and breathe all the crap from the airbags. I also knew that there was a possibility that if there was a fuel leak or something else, the car could catch fire and we definitely didn’t want to be inside if that happened. And lastly, I knew that what had just happened to me could happen to somebody else.
Either way, in the car was not the place to be.
I didn’t die that day, obviously. Good engineering and the Lord looking out for me meant that I could be here talking to you right now.
But it made me reflect:
Am I afraid of dying?
Are you afraid of dying?
This is insight, so I’ll go first.
No, I really never have been concerned about dying. I wasn’t then and I’m still not now.
I don’t have the existential dread that a lot of people experience. I do have normal irrational fears. Everyone has those, but I don’t have any existential dread. I don’t worry about dying. Have you ever heard the story of Lazarus from the Bible? Let me set the stage for you:
Jesus and his disciples were on the east side of the Jordan River. They had fled Judea after a run in with some of the Jews in the Jerusalem area. While they were there, Jesus got word that Lazarus was sick.
As you read the story, you find out that Lazarus is the brother to Mary and Martha. If you’ve heard other gospel stories, you’ve probably heard the names of Mary and Martha. The story where Jesus is visiting and there’s two sisters – one sits down at Jesus’ feet and the other is running around trying to be a good hostess and gets irritated – that’s Mary and Martha. Mary was the sister that sat down at Jesus’ feet; Martha was the sister running around trying to do hostess stuff. Mary is also the person that anoints Jesus’ feet with perfume.
Jesus gets word that Lazarus is very ill. The Bible makes it clear that Lazarus is someone who is close to Jesus and that Jesus cares a great deal for, so it’s odd that Jesus waits two days before departing (to head back into Judea) to see Lazarus. We don’t know exactly where Jesus was when He received word that Lazarus was sick, but we can make a reasonable guess that He was somewhere between 30 and 60 miles away (that’s 50 to 100 kilometers for everyone who’s not in America).
The disciples were really worried for Jesus’ safety because the run-in that had prompted them to flee Judea had ended with the Jews trying to stone Jesus – trying to kill Him. One of the big reasons for their concern is the town where they were headed to, Bethany, was two miles away from Jerusalem. I said some of the disciples were worried, some of them weren’t. One disciple in particular, Thomas (from the post-resurrection “stick your fingers in my wound” story – that Thomas), said, “Let’s go with Jesus so that we can die with him.” Jesus made it clear that He was going back and the disciples were going to see something miraculous, something amazing.
When Jesus gets to Bethany, Lazarus has been dead for four days. Martha, being Martha, slips away from all the mourners and goes out to meet Jesus outside of the town. Martha and Jesus start having a conversation. Martha laments that if Jesus had been there, He could have healed Lazarus, and Lazarus would still be alive. Jesus responds by challenging Martha’s faith that Lazarus can be resurrected. Martha responds that yes, she has faith that he will be resurrected in the end days, along with all of the other saints who have perished. Jesus responds,
“I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live even if he dies and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.”
At the end of the exchange, Jesus assures Martha that Lazarus will be raised from the dead. He proceeds in to Bethany and does precisely that.
It’s a great story. If you’ve never read it, you should. It’s in John chapter 11.
Why do we fear death?
I said earlier that I wasn’t concerned about death, and I’m not, because at a very young age I accepted Jesus. I accepted the sacrifice that he made for me, the gift that he gave to me, and I have security and eternal life after I pass from this world. I know where I’m going, and where I’m going is a lot better than it is here. So no, I’m not concerned about death.
That being said, I would like to die peacefully in my sleep like my grandfather. Not screaming like the other people in his car. (That’s a joke.)
But let’s unpack the concept of the fear of dying a little bit. Why are people afraid of dying?
One of the most tangible issues is the pain and suffering that is part of the dying process. That pain and suffering is not something that can be avoided unless you’re one of the fortunate that passes away in your sleep; otherwise, you’re going to be awake and you’re going to know what’s happening.
Another thing that goes with that is the breakdown of aging. Everyone dies sooner or later, and as you age, your body just breaks down. I’m 40, and I know, I can feel that I am not as young and as spry as I was in my 20s – although my brain still thinks that, my body reminds me that is not the case.
The breakdown of aging, the pain and suffering of dying, that’s kind of baked into the cake – there is nothing that we can do about that. We live in a fallen world. That just comes with the process of dying. That’s the physical part of why people are afraid of dying, so let’s turn and focus on the intangible stuff.
Leading the top of the list for a lot of people is legacy. How is the world going to remember me? Did I leave a mark? What mark did I leave? Did I have a positive influence or a negative influence? How people measure legacy really depends on what their values are.
What are they concerned about? If they made a ton of money or if they left a major company behind? Other people are worried about contributions to politics or to culture.
I am worried about, “Did I do a good job of raising my kids? Did I leave my kids equipped to live godly lives after I’m gone? Did I impart enough of my knowledge and my wisdom into my kids before I passed?” Personally, that’s not something that makes me fear dying; it just focuses where my attention should be while I’m living.
Another intangible is the responsibilities that you have acquired over the course of your life and what happens with those things when you die. I’m a husband and a father. I’m the primary breadwinner in my family. I am the protector of my wife and my kids. So, I worry about what’s going to happen with that stuff after I’m gone. I say, “I do worry about that stuff”, but I shouldn’t -it’s something that I struggle with inside because I have to trust that when it’s time for the Lord to call me home, he has a plan to take care of my wife and my kids and my family after I’m gone. For someone who takes being the protector and the head of his family seriously, it can be hard to let go of that.
For most people, it’s that death is the ultimate unknown. We cannot concretely know what happens after we die. We get reports from people that have had near-death or quasi-death experiences that say they went to the afterlife and came back and this is what they saw. The interesting thing is a lot of those disagree with each other, so someone’s wrong there. As for me, I believe what the Bible tells me, and I believe that I’m going to go be with Christ in heaven. Like I said, that’s way better than it is here, so I’m not afraid of when the Lord calls me home and it’s time for me to move from this world to that one.
The philosopher Soren Kierkegaard said, “The thing is to understand myself, to see what God really wishes me to do, to find the idea for which I can live and die.”
The thing for which I can live and die.
If you’d asked me even two years ago if I thought I would be writing this post, I probably would have laughed at you. That being said, my life has moved through many seasons. Out of high school I spent six years in the Navy. After that, I spent a couple of years doing contract work (not PMC). After that I came back to Colorado to go to school, ran out of money, and picked up a job working at a switch care shop here. That’s where I met my wife through an acquaintance. Shortly after that we moved to Phoenix. That’s where we started our family. After we were in Phoenix for a couple of years we got the opportunity to come back to Colorado. After we got ourselves established here, we found the church that we call home. We got involved in a program called Able Shepherd (that you should really check out). Things changed with my job situation, and the Lord gave me the opportunity to do this, to start Ephesus and to start talking to you.
Through all of that I’ve never been concerned with how I die. My entire life I’ve tried to listen to what God wanted me to do, try to be aware of the way He was pushing me. Now more than ever I’m more concerned with how I live.
In the book of Romans the apostle Paul wrote,
“For not one of us lives for himself and not one dies for himself. For if we live, we live for the Lord. Or if we die, we die for the Lord. Therefore whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.”
I am the Lord’s. I’ve already said I’m not worried about dying. I’m worried about how I live. And how I live is pretty straightforward – not necessarily easy.
The first thing is to accept that God is in control. The next part is figuring out what is His plan for me. I have to be open to that plan and then I have to make the choice to do what He wants me to do. I have the option to turn and go my own way. There’s been a few times in my life that I have, and things did not work out well. When I’m following God’s plan, when I’m doing what He has called me to do, I have to let go of everything else. I have to trust that He will take care of the rest.
I know that I am a child of God and that He loves me. I have to remind myself that my wife and my kids are also children of God and He loves them. As much as I love my family, it’s a shadow of how much God loves us all. And that’s why I can trust that God will take care of them.
Jesus told His disciples what to prioritize.
“Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul, but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body and hell.”
The first part of that, Jesus is saying, “Don’t worry about what goes on here.” In the second part, He says, “Fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body and hell.” In the English translation, it’s easy to think of that as an existential kind of fear (the trembling in a corner kind of fear), but that’s not what He’s talking about. This is the fear, the awe of God – being awestruck by the absolute power and might of the being that created everything. The being that created everything can destroy it all. What Jesus is saying is, ‘Don’t worry about what goes on here. Do what you have been commanded to do by your Father in heaven.’ I’m a disciple of Jesus, that applies to me.
I opened with a quote from Charles Darwin. That might seem odd coming from someone like me who (if you haven’t already figured out) is a proud Christian. I chose that quote because there is a bitter, bitter irony in the man who promoted the theory of the origin of species and the vast amount of destruction that it has wrought in our society, in our culture. It is deeply and bitterly ironic that that man talked about the value of life.
If you’re worried about the death of this body, you’re worried about the wrong thing. Worry about your soul. Get your priorities sorted out.
Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.
– John 14:27
When my time on this battlefield is done, Jesus will call me home to the place he has prepared for me.
What about you?
Do you fear death? Do you live in fear? Have you ever had a brush with death?
Let me know what you think down in the comments. If you have a story to tell I’d love to hear it.
Secure eternal life and cast your cares on Jesus.
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And if I don’t see you before then, I hope I see you in heaven.
God bless.