“Why isn’t my daddy dying as well as you are?”
That’s a question a young woman asked Bob Roberts. I’ve mentioned Bob before. He is a preacher and speaker mainly at camps, but more recently in colleges. We attended the same church he and his wife did for several years, though they were in Hong Kong much of that time. A while back, Bob was diagnosed with stage 4 liver cancer and not given long to live. He didn’t want to waste his cancer, so he started a podcast with friends titled Dead Man Talking, where they discuss suffering, faith, friendship, and more.
Bob has already been granted more years than the doctors originally gave him. He has tried both traditional and alternative medicines, but has opted to live out the rest of his days without any more treatment. He wants to go full tilt, being used of God in whatever way he can with his time left on earth.
Though he is not looking forward to more cancer or to leaving his family and ministry, and he has been honest about the tough realities of the journey, he is also facing them in faith and even joy.
Perhaps that’s what this girl meant by wondering why her father wasn’t dying as well as Bob. Bob shared his answer to her on Facebook, saying that grace had been given him that was available to her dad, too, and they were comparing things not meant to be compared. He said her father may have victory in other areas that Bob doesn’t. Bob discusses his answer further with his friends on the podcast here in an episode titled, “Home Stretch Mercy: Living Hand-to-Mouth on the Faithfulness of God.”
This young woman didn’t say what her father specifically struggled with, at least, not that Bob shared. But I wondered as I listened to the podcast.
I’ve wrestled with various fears concerning death off and on, even though I don’t have a terminal diagnosis. I imagine many of us have. God has given us a strong survival instinct. I remind myself often that grace to die will come when it’s needed, not before.
Still, there are specific aspects of facing death that can rob us of peace. So I wanted to share some of those fears I’ve experienced and what helped me with them. My answers will be abbreviated for this post, but I don’t want them to sound pat or trite.
Fear of judgment. I think this might be the primary reason unbelievers fear death. But even believers who are normally confident in their salvation might question it if they know they are dying. There’s nothing like the thought of actually standing before God in all His holiness to make us tremble.
Fortunately, one reason God gave us His Word is “so that you may know that you have eternal life” (1 John 5:13). We don’t have to face eternity wondering and hoping. We can know.
How? First we must realize that we are sinners. We have offended a holy God. “As it is written: None is righteous, no, not one . . . for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:10, 23). “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23a).
No amount of good works can cancel out our sins. We can’t earn our salvation. “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9). “If righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose” (Galatians 2:21).
But Jesus, God’s only Son, took our sin on Himself on the cross. “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit” (1 Peter 3:18). “The gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23b).
We receive that gift by repenting–turning from our own way and our sin to God– and trusting Him as our Savior. “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. . . For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:9-10, 13).
(For more information, please see How to Know God.)
For years after I was saved, I struggled with assurance of my salvation. Had I understood enough? Believed enough? Repented enough? Finally my pastor shared with me that it doesn’t help to go back and dissect one’s salvation experience. We may not remember what we thought or felt at the time. The key is what am I right now trusting in for salvation? Myself, my works, or Jesus and His death on my behalf?
Even Christians who are sure of their salvation can fear facing God. We all stumble and fail along the way. But He promises “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). We can keep short accounts with Him: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).
Depressive effects of illness. I can get weepy after a week with a stubborn cold, not to mention anything more serious. Sometimes illness itself, or medications, or treatment, or a lengthy recovery can cloud our outlook, even when there is hope of getting better. But when there is no hope of recovery, that dark cloud can settle in.
It doesn’t help to tell ourselves just to look on the bright side. But He can help us “cast our care on Him” (1 Peter 5:7) and give us His grace to endure. “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10).
Fear of pain. Many of us aren’t afraid of what’s on the other side after death, but we’re concerned about how painful the transition is going to be. Hospice care offers many helps to ease that transition. I’m not sure why some seem to have an “easy” death and others a harder experience. But I know God’s grace is there, and in eternity, what seemed long and painful on earth will seem short there. “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18). “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18).
Fear of losing our reason. Though that might happen, we can rest in the fact that God knows us. Any mental instability we might have at the end won’t erase the relationship we have with God. I like what a vicar said in The Scent of Water by Elizabeth Goudge: “If you lose your reason, you lose it into the hands of God.”
Fear of leaving family behind. This is probably one of the hardest aspects of death. We don’t know why God sometimes separates children from parents or husbands from wives or grandparents from grandchildren. Though one of my main reasons for wanting to stay alive is to be a testimony to my family, I have to trust that He will take care of them when He takes me home.
Feeling I haven’t accomplished much with my life. God gives some people a platform that they haven’t sought–Bob Roberts, Joni Eareckson Tada, Elisabeth Elliot. But most of us live smaller, more ordinary lives. Our only responsibility is to be faithful where God has us. If we’ve failed, we can confess that to the Lord and start afresh, living every moment for Him, seeking His grace to shine His light where we are.
Fear of leaving work unfinished. There are a few things I would really like to get accomplished before I die. But I have to realize God doesn’t “need” me. There are things I think He has called me to do, and if that’s the case, He’ll provide the time and grace to do them. I want to make the best use of the time I have left on earth. But if He takes me home before I wrap up those things to my satisfaction, I have to trust Him with that. I think of people like Henry Martyn and Jim Elliot, missionaries who died in their thirties; David Brainerd who died at age 29; William Borden, who died at age 25 before ever reaching the mission field. I don’t know why God would take people with such potential so early. But none of us knows how much time we have. We’re not promised another breath. God knows our days. We just need to serve Him day by day and trust Him with the future.
Fear of the unknown. When I travel, or even when I make plans for the day, I like to know the route, the timetable, what’s on the agenda, what problems may come up that I need to prepare for.
Heaven, in one sense, is a great unknown. Someone has said that God doesn’t tell us any more about heaven than He has because we’d never be able to get any work done here for longing to be there. But with that lack of information, some of us have a dread of the “strangeness to the other world” (Richard Baxter, quoted in O Love That Will not Let Me Go: Facing Death with Courageous Confidence, compiled by Nancy Guthrie). I was glad to see I was not the only person with that feeling.
However, in the same book, Thomas Boston reminds us, “Your best friend is Lord of that other world.” We see the beauty of God’s creation here even though it is marred by the fall. We can only imagine what heaven might be like. We’re told it’s a place where there is no sorrow, crying, death, pain, or pain.
Perhaps if the place we’re going seems strange, it’s because we’re too tied to this world. In The Problem of Pain, C. S. Lewis said, “Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home.” Peter reminds us we’re only “sojourners and exiles” here. Hebrews 11:16 speaks of those who “desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one.” 1 Peter 1:3-5 says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”
Struggling to surrender to God’s will. Some years ago, a friend with five children faced a terminal diagnosis of cancer. Though she finished her course with joy, it took a while to accept that she would not be able to see her children grow up. In our humanness, it’s natural to be disappointed that we won’t live longer.
It has always encouraged me that even Jesus prayed, “Not my will, but Yours be done” in Gethsemane just before He was arrested. He knew this was His hour and the reason He came. Yet He had to face not only horrible physical pain, mocking, and being forsaken by His disciples, but, what was worse, bearing the sin and judgment of the whole world.
Many of the authors quoted in the book mentioned above stressed the need to think more of death, dying, and heaven, not less. Not that we become morbid, but we remind ourselves that’s our ultimate end.
The Bible does say “The last enemy to be destroyed is death” (1 Corinthians 15:26). It is an enemy. But it has lost its sting, and Jesus has gained victory over it: “When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory.’ ‘O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?’ The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:54-57).
Jesus took on flesh “that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery” (Hebrews 2:14-15).
Therefore, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me” (Psalm 23:4).
Whether death is near or far away, may His victory, His presence, and the home He is preparing for us deliver us from that fear.
Out of the fear and dread of the tomb,
Jesus, I come, Jesus, I come;
into the joy and light of Thy home,
Jesus, I come to Thee.
Out of the depths of ruin untold,
into the peace of Thy sheltering fold,
ever Thy glorious face to behold,
Jesus, I come to Thee.
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