DEVOTION / A game plan for death
“What is it you fear?”
The core question
That is a core question Tareq Azim asks his clients. Azim is a life coach of some note. He founded Empower Gym; he counts NFL greats among his clients, he created the Afghan Women’s Boxing Federation, and is the author of Empower: Conquering the Disease of Fear.
"When I’m working on a game plan with a client," Azim says, "and I ask, 'What is it you fear?', every single person’s answer is always about the unknown. [I ask,] “What is the ultimate unknown? What is the worst thing that can happen?” And everybody says death—100 percent of the time. That’s when I come back and say, 'Death is not an unknown. It’s the only guarantee, and it’s the only thing we should prepare for.'"
Azim is not a Christian. But a human being doesn't need to be a Christian to recognize that someday they will die. It's guaranteed. There's no escape. However, as Azim points out, we can prepare for that day; we can have a game plan for our lives.
Azim says he works to help his clients answer this question, “How do you want to feel on your last breath?” Based on the answer to that question, he helps his clients determine their approach to the rest of their lives.
The answer to the core question
How do you want to feel on your last breath?
We don't need a life coach — famous or not — to help us answer that question. The Lord of Life has provided us not just with a pie-in-the-sky dream for our deathbed, but with a never-to-be-broken guarantee.
Are there unknowns about our death day? Of course. We don't know when it will occur. We don't know if it will involve pain. We don't know if death will come in a hospital, on a highway, or in our own beds.
But this is what Christians know:
When we close our eyes in death, we open them again in the glory of heaven.
When we say our final goodbyes to loved ones, we shout our eternal hellos to the Ultimate Loved One.
When we are done struggling to draw our next breath, we will breath in the sweet air of heaven.
When the upheavals and setbacks of life can longer touch us, we will begin to enjoy eternal, uninterrupted peace.
The guarantee
How do we know this? Peter explains, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade” (1 Peter 1:3,4).
Since this is the guarantee, what is the game plan for our lives? Peter has an answer for that, as well. Since our lives and, eventually, all of creation will end, he asks,
What kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming…. In keeping with his promise, we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells. So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him (2 Peter 3:11,13,14).