CanULive2Long,orCanUDie2Soon?

After my recent post in Rock4Today highlighting God as My Healer, my sister-in-law and I were having a conversation about the connection of faith with healing.  We both felt that faith is an action word that involves committment.  She commented that to her it involves attitude, fortitude, and endurance, quoting from James 2:26 that says "faith without works is dead."  Being a survivor of the accident that took three of my siblings, she said she had to apply this principle in order to bring about the healing of her broken bones which enabled her to walk again.

As we were discussing the sudden loss of lives from that accident, she told me about one of my brother's sermons entitled "Can you live too long, or can you die too soon?"  

My brother Bill who was killed in the accident, and my survivor sister-in-law

That question has been burning in my mind ever since she asked it.

I posted the question to my FaceBook friends,

and here are some of the responses:

"I believe I am here as long as the Lord wants me to be,

...not a day or second, more or less."

 "Don't want to be here if my mind or my body goes...

'To live is Christ, and to die is gain,' and

'My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.'"

 "Does God ever take a person sooner than he planned,

or does he leave someone longer than he planned...

....maybe because of his/her or others desires???"

"The Bible says our days are numbered,

so I am going to let God answer this question for me!"

"I like Psalm 139 verse 16

'And in Your book they all were written,

The days fashioned for me,when as yet there were none of them' 

- though it doesn't settle that question

of whether we're fitting into God's plan for us."

And finally, one from my niece:

"Okay, I think that everyone leaves this earth before they're ready. We should live forever. But then this "world" is so fraught with problems; who would want to. I think when all your friends and family are dead and you are lonely and crippled and suffering, its time to go. Did my dad go too early???? Did he have more to do here??? Of Course. My dad's job seemed far from done. There were people who still needed him (not just me). He was such a good minister! He truly knew how to "bind up the broken hearted". His love for people was doing great things in the prison and on the outside.. But a genetic and biological mishap took him from us. God still had work for him to do. Sometimes I think if dad had gone to the doc earlier or eaten different or listened to my constant nagging he would still be here. I don't have that guarantee...  After I lost my spiritual anchor I lost my way and felt I didn't want to be in "this world" anymore and came very close to leaving it. I was in constant pain, constant fever, constant grief. The only thing that kept me going was wanting to see my son graduate. So I held on and despite grim diagnosis from doc just kept hanging on.     So I tried a second opinion. In five minutes my pain had a solution. I fired my old doc, stopped all medication and had a bit of surgery on my shoulder. I got my life back. I'm better than ever. I still have work to do. I was convinced in the pain of my illness that I was done. Now I have so much to do "in the work of the Lord" that I may never have time to die!   ...I will just keep working through to "the end of the world" and beyond.  ...So while I think we were meant to live forever as God's original purpose, I do think that people who are suffering need relief. If that relief comes in the form of physical death from illness, then its okay..."

 

 

What do you think? 

      Can you live too long? 

           ...Or can you die too soon?

 

 

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