Today’s post was submitted by Meghan Gross, who is a Church Leadership major at LaGrange College and who just completed an Internship in Pastoral Leadership at Christ Community Church.
My parents and I were watching Hamilton recently when I realized that I had forgotten something major. It’s going to sound dumb, but I legitimately forgot that death existed.
I was so caught up in how perfectly my life is going and enjoying it so much that I hadn’t given much thought to the fact that one day it will end. When we hear about people in history books, they seem more like characters than real people. But they had lives that seemed endless, just like us.
One thing Hamilton was consistently asked was, “Why do you write like you’re running out of time?” He had scribbled down so much, as if he was aware that death existed and that he only had so much time to say what he needed to. When he was only about 48 years old, he passed away, and the musical ends with a number about what others will say about your story when you die and how limited our time really is and how much you can do with the time you are given. As the musical closed out, it hit me that my life is so short, and soon I will stand before the God who created everything and be judged for my life and all of my actions here on Earth.
Although maybe you’re different than me and you haven’t physically forgotten that death exists, certainly most of us have lived at some point as if death isn’t a reality. We sin, not thinking about standing before God to account for that sin. We waste hours and hours on things like Disney+ or social media, but we neglect the work God has called us to.
Many non-Christians avoid thinking of eternity, because they figure they have time to figure it out. But none of us know how long we have left. Psalm 144:4 says, “We disappear like a breath; we last no longer than a faint shadow.” That’s why the Psalmist prays in Psalm 90:12, “Teach us to realize the brevity of life, so that we may grow in wisdom.” What if we daily lived with the recognition that life is short and death is real? Because if we really know that we are going to die, we’ll change the way we live.
We also don’t know how much time those around us have. One of my favorite Christian lyrics comes from the song “More Like Jesus” by Passion. It says, “This world is dying to know who You are.” People are dying every single day without knowing Jesus, and the results are devastating. They face an eternity without Him.
This world is yearning for hope, and more specifically, they are yearning for Jesus. They are dying to know Him but often dying without knowing Him. When I rest in the weight of that, I can’t waste my life not being intentional and missional with every single breath I’m given.
Like Hamilton scribbled down his ideas furiously as if he was running out of time, we must do the same as Christians. We have to speak and speak and speak about Jesus as if we’re running out of time. Because we are. And others are, too. If we live with this in mind every day, imagine what kind of amazing story we can carry into eternity and how many other stories can be impacted by our own.
Like Trees Planted 