The Twist in Praying for Long Life.
The twist in praying for long life.
Where it all begins
There are so many twist in life and one of which is praying for long life. I remember one musician released a song around the lyrics of “nobody wants to die but they want to go to heaven” Life is ironic.
“Life is ironic. It takes sadness to know what happiness is, noise to appreciate silence, and absence to value presence” – Anonymous
To be very honest, one of the greatest shocks of my life has been about losses, loosing a loved one. If it’s a distant loss; and by distant, I mean someone you don’t know or who is not close to you; you might feel it but in no distant time, the feeling goes away. It hits different when it is with a loved one.
For the longest time, you may not be able to wrap your head around the loss. It’s not easy to move on after you have expressed such a loss at close range, and when people do; they just move on with the loss. They struggle with having to go back to the dark place of mourning. Memories of their loved ones keeps flooding their minds. It’s even worse if their environment doesn’t support them while they grieve. If there was a manual for grieving, maybe it would have been easier but there’s really no best way to grieve.
Sometimes we wish nobody dies but we all want to go to heaven. There’s just a twist with praying for long life.
Nobody wants to die, well not yet. You’ll hear people give a number of reasons why they still want to be around. They want to get married and have children. They want to enjoy life, and have business(es) to run. There is a career to purse amongst many other reasons. We literally ask God for long life in our daily prayers. All these are great but are they enough reason to want to have long life?
Should praying for long life be priority?
Why pray for long life?
The concept of long life is not directly proportional to length of days. You cannot infer that someone, who stayed around on earth for a longer time lived longer than someone who just stayed for a few years.
One major determinant of long life is being able to finish all the assignments you have been given; within the time you have to spend on earth.
For every mankind on the surface of the earth; there is a place for him in God’s grand scheme of things. He’s got a contribution to make on earth. Our mothers didn’t go through the rigor of child birth; and training just for us to come and occupy space and leave after a while. There is a plan for everyone, and a beautiful one at that.
If you understand who God is, you will know that he is an excellent human resource manager. He does this with a lot of finesse, knowing exactly how to maximize resources, living or non-living. He is an organized God, doesn’t just do anything anyhow. And because His plan for any two persons aren’t the same; even if they appear similar, He equips each and everyone adequately to carry out their assignment(s). So, when you’re in a position of surplus, understand that the surplus isn’t there for fun, or for a selfish reason; God has a need of it.
Our journeys are different.
Putting this in perspective; A King has two servants and he needs both of them to run an errand for him. One is to go somewhere within the state where the palace is; while the other servant’s assignment is outside the state where the palace is. If the king is to allocate resource to these two servants; you’d agree that the servant going out of the state gets more resources to cover for his transportation, hotel accommodation, feeding, and every other necessary thing he might be needing. But for the other servant whose assignment is within the states; he won’t be need as much resource as the first.
In terms of the now, the resources could be wealth, length of days, connection/relationships, power, etc. If it’s going to take a person 20 years to complete all the assignments he’s been given by God and he completes them all and dies at 20; should there be any cause for alarm?
If another needs 50 years to finish up everything he’s been called to do and he does them all and dies at 50; should we be troubled?
Maybe if we knew from the start the number of years we have to live on earth; we would make conscious effort to know what we are called to do and begin to put in the work. At our best, we are still human; and one of our limitations is that we really do not know what tomorrow holds. We can’t tell when we would all be gone from the earth. So, we ought to live with all sense of urgency, and stop acting like we have over a 100 years to live.
The beauty of life itself
Long life is relative and as you pray for it, ensure you are on your feet doing all your creator has called you to do and shining your light so the world can see it and give glory to God in heaven.
This post is not to discredit our quest for long life, it only projects the urgency to living life. Do not live like you’d stay here forever, we just won’t. You only live once (YOLO) so live each day as your last. By all means, work; get invested in your purpose, love; you may not see the ones you see again, and then live; enjoy all that God & life has to offer you.
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All my love,
#gleaningwithgrace
