“When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory’” (1 Corinthians 15:54, NIV).

He had demonstrated great anxiety early in the diagnosis of his cancer, but he was now more than three years out with a likely cure. “You know I used to be afraid of dying with my cancer, but I’m not anymore. Last year I went through this procedure, and I died—my heart stopped. I found myself in a place that was extremely peaceful and wonderful. I could hear my mother calling my name from that place, and I wanted to see her. Then I woke up, but I didn’t want to come back. I knew where I had been. I am not afraid of dying anymore.”

What made you lose your fear of dying, if you have?

For me, there have been multiple factors.

1. I believe God’s Word that promises me eternal life.
2. I long for and look forward to seeing the ones I love who are now on the other side of glory.
3. My worship in community brings me regularly to the truth of life.
4. If death is the end, life makes no sense; beauty makes no sense, nobility makes no sense; injustice makes no sense.

It’s more than that, though. When I was 31 and headed for a life dedicated to international missions, I would sometimes peer into the dark corner of a midnight room and tremble at the “terror of eternal nothingness.” During those days of intermittent existential fear, I passed through an unrelated event in my life that saw no hope of deliverance; and then, He delivered me. I can still feel myself falling hopelessly into the arms of God; and more than that, I can still feel His arms catching me. From the moment I landed in His arms, the fear of death dissolved, not into reason or doctrine, but into relationship. Somehow the relationship I experienced with that deliverance made me confident, not of the place to which I was going after this life, but the Person to whom I was going, the One who will always catch me in His arms.

Dear Father,

Let my whole life be a journey to your arms.

Amen