Keep calm, almost home.
I hear it often in my profession. ‘It was a wake up call, doc’. This usually refers to a dramatic event or change in someone’s health status such as a stroke, heart attack, cancer, or diabetes diagnosis. Something that happens to a person that makes them aware of their own mortality like never before. Some may call it a cross roads moment causing one to evaluate their life choices. It is at this particular time, a person can panic or they can call it a ‘wake up call’. In their attempt to make sense of this scary, near death experience, they emerge awakened and ready to change their behavior. They use it to their advantage and start making healthier choices to live a better life.
There are a lot of events that are happening in this world today that some people try to make sense of. The death of a loved one, death of a celebrity, the corona virus. Most people panic and run to the grocery store to stock up on toilet paper. Some people may call these events a wake up call because it reminds us that life is temporary. It is true, life IS temporary. So what do we do with that? Why do we need these bad dramatic catastrophes to happen to remind us of that?
As a family physician, I promote preventative medicine. This means practicing a set of good lifestyle habits so that your own body’s healing potential will be optimized in order to prevent disease, poor outcome of a disease or early death. Good diet for example, exercise, vaccines, wearing sunscreen, HAND WASHING, mammograms, physical exams are all examples of preventative medicine. To the heart attack patient, I advise low cholesterol diet, exercise, medications, abstain from smoking. Will doing all these things guarantee that he will never have heart attack again? No, only God knows the answer to that question. But it WILL decrease his risk. We practice this preventative medicine to help prevent the dramatic event and catastrophes.
Some of my non compliant patients may argue, we are going to die anyway so why torture myself with all these strict diet rules now? Although some of this may be coming from a place of fear or unwillingness to change, there is some truth to this.
True, some day our earthly bodies will eventually give out. Death is a dramatic event that is NOT preventable. It is inevitable. We practice these good habits to help us live well now, while we’re here on earth. Of course, there’s more to this as the Bible teaches us that our bodies of the temple of the Holy Spirit. I can write a whole other blog on the biblical truths of why God has called us to live a healthy life.
Today, I ask this, what are we doing now to help us prepare for the final dramatic event, and for our NEXT life AFTER we die?
If we know that life is temporary, It’s not if, but when, then what are we doing to prepare for that?
The first thing we need to remember is Jesus conquered the grave. Jesus died for our sins so that we can be with him in heaven. Our father and creator loves us so much, he did this for us. (John 3:16). Jesus is God’s only solution for our sin. Only through Him can we know God and receive His love and forgiveness. We must each respond to Jesus by placing our trust in Him as our Savior and Lord. Only then, can we know God personally.
‘Dear friends, I warn you as “temporary residents and foreigners” to keep away from worldly desires that wage war against your souls’. 1 Peter 2:11.
When these dramatic events happen, we still get shaken up or panic. Ever hear of the saying having a ‘kingdom mindset’? This means learning to live as God thinks so we can have victory over our struggles here and then we don’t have to panic when these dramatic events happen. I like to think of this as preventative medicine for the soul. But instead of preventing disease or early death, we are preventing that ‘war that can wage against our souls, as Peter calls it. This can manifest as depression, anxiety, discouragement, despair and yes, PANIC.
I just looked this up online and surprisingly there are a lot of websites on this subject of having a kingdom mindset. Here is an excerpt from one of them:
If I want to develop a kingdom mindset, I must:
- Accept God as king over everything – including my life.
- Realize that I am to be subject to the rule of the king, who is God.
- I must know His laws and ordinances and then obey them completely.
- Submit my heart, mind and will as the territory over which God has complete authority.
This is what we can do in order to prepare now.
The next thing to remember, is that just like in any kingdom, there is royalty. We are His royalty. You are his beloved prince, princess, royal subject
called for a purpose.
You may not be going through a catastrophe now or never had a dramatic event happen to you such as death of a close relative. You might just be struggling with day to day stresses. In the beginning of the psalm 43, David was talking about the enemy.
I believe the enemy for me today is these feelings of discouragement, uncertainty in the day to day stuff.
But in Jesus we never have to be uncertain of the purpose He has for us.
The purpose is not to be here on this earth long, but eventually with him in heaven. Having a ‘kingdom mindset’ can help us with these situations as well.
If you live with this ‘kingdom mindset’ fully trusting God, then the next time a dramatic event happens, or life gets you down, you don’t have to panic. Keep calm, carry on. We are almost home. And further more, we don’t have to wait for a catastrophe to happen to wake us up, in order pull us closer to God or remind us of what we already know.
We are HIS chosen! He is fully present here, taking care of us now. And he will carry us into our home in eternity.
Thank you for letting me share.
-Hopeful girl, sober for 1,694 days, hopeful til the day I go home.
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