Day 24 dying

 Ive probably told you this before but I think its a message so worth repeating.

Ive just had another conversation with a friend who knows someone who is dying.  Its going to happen to all of us increasingly as we get older - it probably has already.  There can be a real dilemma for those of us who know Jesus, when we are aware that someone who doesnt know Him is terminally ill. We know we need to pray, we know we should be having conversations about Jesus, but we also know that people are dealing with so many things and can be so distressed.  What to say and how to say it?  Well, here is what and how.  It is super easy to have this conversation and it works!

I first had this conversation with my Mum who was pretty resistant to talking about faith over the years. But dying focuses the mind and changes people.  Here's what I said

I need to you make me a promise.  When you die, Jesus is coming for you.  He comes for everyone when they are dying, but the thing is you dont know Him so you might not recognise Him when He comes for you.  So I want you to promise me that if a 33yr old bloke comes and stands by your bed and says ' Margaret, will you come with me?'  you say yes.  Take His hand and go with Him.  Will you do that?

Simple isnt it?  Most people are very happy to promise to do something they know is important to you.  They know you believe.  At the end of their lives they will want to know how to believe themselves and this is a really simple way of introducing Jesus into their dying.  Of course once they have said they will go with Him you can suggest that if they want to be really sure, they can meet Him here and now and you can pray with them.  You can show them that they can say sorry and thank you and do the whole 'prayer of salvation' thing.  But even if you dont get a chance to do that you can go away praying that Jesus takes their promise, opens their eyes to see Him and that in their final moments they say yes.

The thief on the cross is one of the most wonderful and hope-giving stories in the Bible.  The fact that he was loved and accepted by Jesus in his final moments is amazing.  All he did was look across at Jesus.  In that moment God allowed him to recognise that this was the Son of God who was about to enter heaven and he asked if he could go too.  I wonder if that thief had a praying mother or wife or friends who were pleading with God for a miracle as they watched their loved one being nailed to a piece of wood.   Its hard to know what to pray when people are obviously at the end of life. We tend to rush to God asking for miracles of healing.  And dont get me wrong I really do believe in miracles and we do definitely need to keep asking for them.  But we can also be praying that people recognise Jesus when He comes to them and say yes when He holds out His hands and says ' Do you want to come to my Father's house with me and be in heaven today?'