During my usual quick read-through the scriptures, I normally plow through the Word for familiarity, not deep study. But this morning, I was not able to get past a verse of scripture dealing with life in the Lord, death, faith, and more. The verse was 2 Samuel 14:14:
For we will surely die and are like water spilled on the ground which cannot be gathered up again. Yet God does not take away life, but plans ways so that the banished one will not be cast out from Him.
So much here, first of which is the fact that we all must die. Hebrews 9:27 echoes this statement by saying that we are all appointed to die once, and then we face judgement. Now for some of us, death is after a long, fulfilling life. It is welcome and does not creep upon us. We have served the Lord and our time has come, and we long to jump into the arms of Christ. But for others, death is a sneaky thief that grabs us when we are most unaware. In the presence of fun, friends, errands, work. He grabs us when he grabs us whether we are ready or not. It is because of this sneaky death that we must be prepared to leave this life behind in a heartbeat, for our next heartbeat is nowhere promised. Are you ready to die? Will you be in heaven?
Our lives cannot be gathered up again meaning we do not get to redo our life. We cannot take back our actions or our words. Jesus reminds us in Matthew 12:36 that every idle word we speak will be judged. James warns about the power our words have in our life and the lives of others (James 3:1-12). Just like our words, our actions will also be accounted for. Read about the life of David and his encounter to Bathsheba to see the consequences. In a nutshell, despite the prophet Nathan telling David that The Lord has forgiven him of the sin (2 Samuel 12:13b), the final result was still the death of four of Davids children and the curse that violence would never leave his family line, indeed the same family line which also spawned the Prince of peace. So I implore you to live your life including actions and words in such a way to be without regrets. It is better to clean up a small puddle of water than a large one.
God does not take away life but plans ways... means that He is not willing to just sweep away our life, but rather, He is always planning a way for us to run into repentance. If you look at the famous story of the Lost Son in Luke 15:17 says that the son finally came to his senses. This happens when we hit bottom, a term used in psychology and counseling for when a person has fallen into such despair that they reach out and cry out in any possible way to get help from their addiction. God is actively bringing calamity into the lives of His children that are walking in ways contrary to Him. He longs to bring them to their knees so that they repent and serve Him. We separated ourselves from Him by damaging our own sanctification. Now He longs to restore us.
True, we will all die, but for those that live to honor The Lord, they will have a life of great peace and a death into the open and loving arms of Christ Jesus, our Savior. Though our past mistakes cannot be erased, they can be covered and atoned for. He will seek to bring you back to Himself, and remember also that He has promised to restore the time that was lost to the trials (Joel 2:25). Call on the Lord live in His presence.
