Live As If You Will Live Forever

Before I begin, let me ask you this question: when are you going to die? I'm almost certain that none of you have the answer to that. You might die today -- or you might die many years from now. But for now, let's assume that you'd actually live longer than you expect.

Now, that should be quite comforting! You thought that you may have 10 or 20 years left, but you might actually have 50 more years to go. You may live past 100. Now tell me, if you do find yourself living that long, are you preparing NOW to enjoy the life at a very old age?

Right now, many of you are making decisions as if you're not expecting to live long. Some of you aren't pursuing what's on your heart. Some of you are not taking good care of yourselves. Some of you are being very wasteful with money as if you're going to die tomorrow. Some of you are putting off important things because you don't think it would matter in the future. Whatever it is that you're doing or NOT doing may hurt you very dearly should you live long enough to feel the pain.

Being in EMS, I've gone into many nursing homes, enough to not ever put my mother into one. It's sad seeing that many of these people will lay on their beds for many years unable to talk, move, or clean themselves. For some, tragedy happened that put them in a nursing home. But for others, they ended up there because they didn't take better care of themselves while they had the chance to.

But you know what is truly scary to think about? Many of these nursing home patients probably didn't expect to live as long as they are now. So now they are trapped in broken bodies wondering when they would die. That's scary to think about.

My grandmother ended up in a nursing home because of a stroke. She was about 89 or 90 when she had a stroke, but before that happened, she was still active and in her right mind. She was still driving! Being that old, you would think that the stroke should have killed her. Instead, it just left her debilitated, unable to talk, walk, or clean herself. She stood in the nursing home for FIVE more years!

One night, I went to the hospital where she was transferred and said a prayer while she was asleep. I prayed that God would take her soul and end her misery -- if she had any misery. The very next day, she died at age 95.

There are people who are currently living past that who are still fit, active, in their right minds, and live independently. They have taken care of themselves. They probably didn't expect to live to 99, 100, 106, but they lived their life preparing as if they would live forever.

Right now, are you preparing to live forever? Of course, we all will die -- but it may happen much, much, much (much, and much, and much) later in life for you. So, take care of yourself NOW so that you won't find yourself living past 80 broke down with your mind gone.

I saw this episode of the Twilight Zone (the 1950s version) of a man who was a glutton for books. He loved reading, reading, reading, and reading. One day, a hydrogen bomb destroyed his town, killing everybody in it (and it possibly destroyed everybody in the world). Sad and alone, his spirits were lifted when he discovered a library with lots and lots of books! He was excited! He had enough books to read for many years.

Then, the unexpected happened. This man needed his thick glasses to see. As you would guess, he dropped his glasses, breaking them in pieces. He was surrounded by the things he loved: books. But, he can't read any of them because his only pair of glasses were destroyed. He should have spent time finding stores that had extra reading glasses and stock up -- even if those glasses didn't fit his prescription. Then he would have had enough glasses to indulge in his love for reading. But instead, he may live a mighty long time in misery because he can't read a single word anymore.

Aren't we the same way? We don't expect to live long, so we could get careless with our decisions. But then we discover that we are living longer than expected. We could have been in a much better place by now, but because we didn't expect to live long, we've arrived at our future unprepared. Unfortunately, once we've arrived at our future unprepared, there may not be much for us to do, except to simply wait to die.

It's important that we live TODAY as if we are going to live forever. Take care of your body. Pursue what's really on your heart. Don't make enemies on purpose, causing people to hate you. Make these changes NOW so that you don't arrive at your future with a load of regret. You may die tomorrow, you may die in the distant future. In either case, prepare so that you won't end up in an unpleasant place in the future.