Imagine yourself swimming in the ocean off of a gorgeous beach. The sun is high overhead, the water is cool and refreshing, the seagulls are lazily swooping down for an occasional snack and your two young children are playing at the edge of the surf, splashing and giggling. This is life! Suddenly, your peaceful revelry is shattered by one word from the lifeguard on the beach - Shark! This single syllable conjures up images of blood, shredded flesh and death (you have seen Jaws!) Your reaction is immediate - get out of the water and get your children out of the water! Any parent that would continue swimming and allow their children to keep playing in the water would be assumed to be abnormal, negligent ... Even evil. The natural response in a situation which threatens immediate death is - choose life.
The man sitting in the cardiologist office is facing a decision. After a grueling series of tests and procedures, three blockages have been found in the arteries surrounding his heart. The physician explains that a surgical procedure (code for 'scalpel please!') is necessary. They will take off a blood vessel from his leg and use it to by-pass the blockages colse to his heart. As the physician talks about the incision, the breaking of bones, etc., the man begins to realize that this is not going to be fun. His mind wanders and he begins to think, "I'd rather play golf." In spite of his desire to avoid pain and deny the need for the surgery, his options become clear: have the surgical operation and live, or refuse the surgical operation and die. Presented with such clear options, the man opts for the surgical operation (you can't play golf if you are dead!). When it comes down to the wire, for all of his tough talk, he makes the obvious decision - choose life.
We are all born with a passion to live. Just think about the astonishing measures that are taken to keep population alive who are suffering from final illness and the millions of dollars raised each year to help find a cure for cancer, heart disease, Hiv and diabetes. We make rules and post signs about security to try to minimize the number of population who die because of carelessness. Wear your security helmet! Don't drive over the speed limit! Don't drink and drive! Don't keep loaded guns near children! These are all about life because we have a passion to live!
We are so passionate about life that we can't even force ourselves to talk about death. Euthanasia is not about killing population with final illness, it is a ability of life issue. Abortion is not about killing unborn babies, it is about choice, selecting the ability of the life of the mom and insisting that no life exists in the womb. The only one we cannot put a life spin on is suicide, so it is viewed as a reasoning health issue, one that is never discussed, even by those who have lived through the suicide of someone very close to them. Even at funerals, where death and mortality are staring us right in the face, we are uncomfortable with the argument and want to move past the graveside aid to the reception where we can eat potato salad and talk about shallow things. Life is clearly a more comfortable topic than death. We were not created for death, we were created for life!
Every time I watch someone I love go through the valley of the shadow of death, I am more convinced that 'death' is not what God intended for us. Several years ago I sat by the bedside of a dear friend and mentor who was dying. She had given her life to God and served Him faithfully as a missionary in South America. I had the privilege of traveling with her back to Brazil where the third generation of native Brazilians met to celebrate her life and ministry. Watching her struggle to breathe as the fluid filled her lungs, finding the frailty of her arms and hands, being unable to describe with her about how much she was loved, this was death. When she breathed her last, I went to my hotel room and reflected. Death is ugly, death is the opposite of life and death is Not what we were made for. We were made for life! God's first and most leading instruction to man was, choose life.
You are passionate about life! Wait a minute, Bob, you don't even know me! No, but I do know that you picked this article, an record about selecting life. There is something about the ability of your life that is not fully satisfying. There is something missing. I can roughly hear the unspoken thoughts that are swirling colse to in your mind right now:
There has to be more to life than this,
I need to get my life together,
My life seems so empty, meaningless,
I want to nothing else but live!
The good news is that this desire - this innate passion for life - is God-given. You and I were created for life. When God, "... Formed man out of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life," (Genesis 2:7) man - Adam - came alive. He was related to the life of God and then related with the life of Eve when they became "one flesh" (Genesis 2:24). He was settled in a gorgeous orchad surrounded by the living creation of God and given entrance to the tree of life. He was given beauty, provision, a dwelling place, excitement, adventure, accountability and pleasure and was free to enjoy it all. Here, surrounded by the newly created orchad and creatures, he was free to explore, discover, grow, enjoy, relate, reproduce, and achieve. What word would we use to describe all of that? Life! Not only did God breathe life into man but then he set him up to live it to the fullest. No wonder we are passionate out life, our inventor is too! We reflect God's passion for life because we were made in His image! This is the definition of life that is found in the writings of the Bible. Life is the relationship between God and man that is experienced as a personal relationship between inventor and creature. relationship with God is life. through that relationship we know who we are, we reflect who He is and we live in relaxation out of our hearts. See diagram 1 for an illustration of this life.
So, from the beginning, let's define what it is we are all nothing else but finding for. What is life? Life is a conscious, interactive, personal relationship to our inventor through which we get our true identity, touch peace and joy beyond circumstances and sense a relaxation to embrace our journey and join together with others from our hearts.
This is the life we were created to enjoy. If this isn't what we are currently experiencing, the good news is that this life is ready for us and we have the power to choose it and the desire to choose it.
Terminal Lung Cancer :Our Desire For Life
ไม่มีความคิดเห็น:
แสดงความคิดเห็น