If you could, Would You?

If you could be told the date, time, place and method of your death, would you want to know?
Would you want to know if you would face death alone or be held in the warm embrace of your family?
Would this knowledge impact your life? Would you seek to change? Would you look for
God or live with abandonment, not caring what you did, only seeking worldly pleasures before you died?
If you knew that, as you walked out the door that morning, you would never return home again, would you walk out that door? If you knew that tomorrow you would die, what would you do?
Other than this moment, this second, we are not guaranteed another moment of life. Do you praise God and thank Him for His great gift of life? As I have aged, I have come to realize what an amazing gift life is. I have been given so many chances to right the wrongs. Each day gives me that gift. Each day I am granted the opportunity to grow closer to God, to live in His ways and in His truths.

When I visit with young couples today, especially those who are pregnant, I am always amazed when I ask if they know the sex of their child and they answer, "No, we want it to be a surprise."
If I could have known the sex of my children before they were born, there would have been no yellow walls, no yellow clothing. I would have celebrated their births with appropriate themes and colors. So, I am surprised at this response, but this is birth, not death.

The truth is we are all born to die, but we are also born to love God and live to the fullest extent that we can. We must navigate our way through the hurdles and challenges of each day as we seek to fulfill what most people don't realize is an inborn longing for God and a return to Him. Is that statement a surprise? We are all born with a desire to return to our Creator.

When a child is conceived, that tiny infant has a craving for God imprinted on its soul. At that stage of development, the child is not aware of this, but it is there. As we age, we have that same desire for God. Too often the desires of the world, presented by satan and his minions, block out the desire for God and God becomes an imaginary creature, a fairy tale. Yet, even in a soul enthralled with the world, this spark, this desire for God is there. In the end, most souls look for what they missed during their lives.

In the movie, "Gravity," the character that Sandra Bullock plays is convinced she is going to die.
She is talking to a monitor that has just died in her space craft and she says, "I'd say a prayer for myself, but no one taught me how." That inborn longing for God, though weak, is still there.

Would you want to know the what, when, where,why and how of your death? I'm not sure, but I'm more inclined, like so many perspective parents today, to be surprised. I hope to make course corrections, to walk back in God's ways even when I fall off the path and into grave sin. Each new day is a gift. However, if I knew that this moment, this hour would be my last, I would want to hug my children and to thank God for the gift of them to me. Do I want to know everything about my future? I'm not sure. How do you feel about this?