PASSING ON?

“No one on his deathbed looked up into the eyes of friends and family and said, ‘I wish I’d spent more time at the office.” — Paul Tsongas

1 Corinthians 15:50-58
1 Corinthians 1:26-31

Few people focus on making money in their later days. As the twilight of their time here approaches, people rarely look to boast of achievements or primp their appearance. They don’t lord official or material authority over others. People nearing the end tend to deal the questions within.

The deathbed turns a person’s thoughts to something higher. The old ways of the self fall to the side as eyes start searching for meaning, identity and purpose.

Why?

Perhaps previous distractions become more opaque in one’s later days. Issues seemingly marginal before move to the center. A God comes standard.

Does the self’s passing allow for greater receptivity to what didn’t produce wealth or beauty or fame? The great distraction, Self, with its attendant demands of Obsession, Vanity, Greed, and Lust, falls away. Why gain more money when you can’t spend it? Why try to attain the beauty only youth can claim? Why boast of a life nearing its end?

The decline of the Self’s pervasiveness opens a great vacuum. It is so great, only some idea or person as big as God could fill it. Only the ideas that circulate God, things like love and family and friendship and purpose and meaning, provide rest for worried souls.

This takes place near our end. Not for everyone, but for many. Space opens inside for a God to enter or a Jesus to teach. But could it happen in our earlier days? Could we, you and I, learn to focus on his ideas?

Yes and no. Yes, because there is a way, and no because the I, the Self, cannot survive the experience.

We can choose Him, but this necessitates choosing against ourselves. We want to feed, focus on and care for the self. But Jesus, the one who spoke of God with such familiarity and authority, says we should watch for and follow God. This means neglecting the Self, forgetting the self, ignoring its clamorous cries.

Agony approaches as the Self dies slowly, but as I decrease, his teachings increase in my life. I start to live because he teaches life.

The Self will pass away. God has always been, always will be. If I want to live, I can wait for time to pull down the pillars of the world’s wealth, or I can begin forgetting of the world’s ways and its focus on me.

How much do you think about yourself?
What would you rather focus on?

Adam