“Lord, make me to know my end, And what is the measure of my days, That I may know how frail I am.” ~Psalm 39:4

The older I get and the more people I know who are here one moment and gone the next, the more I realize how frail I am. I think a lot about the brevity of life and wonder how many more minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or years I have left. And I admit it can worry me at times. But I choose to focus on the Lord, to trust that my life is in His hands and that He will continue to use me until I have completed His purposes for me.

As a young person, I had very little concept of Heaven. Sure, I liked the thought of it, and I knew it was a real place, but it seemed so far away. The older I get and the more people I know who have gone ahead of me, the more real it becomes, and I long to be like Enoch who grew closer and closer to the Lord until “he was not, for God took him” (Genesis 5:24).

Now, I don’t have grand illusions that I will escape death like Enoch did (barring Christ’s return), but I long to walk so close to the Lord that the crossing is full of faith instead of fear. I want to trust that He has my good in mind no matter what comes my way. I want to spend my life focusing on Him and following His will instead of my own fleshly desires. I am hopeful that, as I stay in the Word and spend time with Him, He will help me to grow in this area.

I do not want to live in fear and anxiety, but I think it’s important to recognize how short life really is and to use each moment wisely. This does not mean that you cannot do anything fun, but “fun” should not be our constant aim. As my brother reminds his family, we are here to love and serve God and to love and serve others. We need to be spreading God’s light wherever we go in whatever we do. If these are our goals, I believe we will truly be able to rest in peace when our time of departure draws near.