Death

Death. The word that haunts men. As a teacher of literature, it was always interesting to me how many writers down through the ages have written about death. Man is preoccupied with trying to explain it, with trying to find some way to soften its impact and their unknown fears. No so, however, with the child of God. He rests in the arms of the destroyer of death, His Savior. Like Paul, he can say, "For to me, to live is Christ and to die, gain . . . having a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better." Death is a going home to be with Him, to at last see Him whom we have loved but have not seen.
And I love the ways in which that word "depart" was used in New Testament times. It was used by soldiers to take down the tent and move on--to depart. To sailors it meant to put up the sail--to depart. To the farmer it meant to unhook the oxen. To the jailor it meant to set the prisoner free. What a picture of death to us who know our Savior. We are going from a tent to a room in His house, from the battle to the place of rest. We are setting sail for home, our "new world." We can release the oxen, the toil in the harvest is done. We have not looked back. We can escape the prison of our earthly bodies to live in a heavenly one that He has prepared for us, immortal and incorruptible. The body we leave behind is merely the cocoon, the butterfly has gone--the transformation is complete.

Someday we will be like Him, "for we shall see Him as He is."