I Want To Live Like There’s No Tomorrow, Lord
Time is limited and precious. Life is short. Don’t waste your life.
—– Through the Eyes of an Overcomer of a Rare Cancer. —–
Psalms 39:4 (NIV)
Show me, Lord, my life’s end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting my life is.
Psalms 90:12 (NIV)
Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
James 4:14 (NKJV)
whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.
“We all love to receive blessings.” What mental image forms when you read that phrase? Do you imagine receiving a gift? Winning the lottery perhaps? There is a natural tendency to assess things as blessings or curses based on worldly values, i.e. a blessing is when life is made better and a curse is when life is made worse. While it certainly can be a blessing if life is made better, sometimes Trojan horses arrive as blessings. The temptations of the world: money, power, fame, and pleasure, are dangerous because they can feel like blessings even when they are actually curses. Similarly, things that make life seemingly worse, health problems, death of loved ones, failure of children, loss of a job, financial ruin, betrayal by others, can feel like curses, but potentially have silver linings that are blessings in disguise, designed to refine our faith.
Let me propose a different way to categorize the things that happen in our lives:
If something brings people closer to God, it is a blessing.
Conversely, if something separates people from the love of God, it is a curse.
In 2001, I had my first surgery to remove a tumor from my salivary gland in my face. Two weeks later, I was shocked to learn that it was cancer. I had witnessed several close relatives die from cancer. I was not a better person nor a better christian than my relatives. If God didn’t answer their prayers for healing, then I had even less hope God would answer mine. I had many struggles with the cancer diagnosis. Uncertainty, depression, fear, etc. I couldn’t sleep at night. At the time, I prayed for healing, but if God didn’t want to heal me, I pleaded with God to let me see my kids grow up, and graduate from college. That way, I’d know they were set in life before I left this earth. I had no significant options left at my end except for prayer. God was the final arbitrator for my life, and surrender was the only option.
I heard a quote once:
In life, people have many problems until they encounter a major health issue, then they only have 1 problem.
This summed up my situation at the time. All my other problems seemed insignificant compared to my life-and-death health issue.
These two verses in Psalms resonated with me since then:
Show me, Lord , my life’s end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting my life is,
Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
I felt the Lord was saying to me, live each day like when manna is given from heaven, a gift only for that day. Tomorrow, pray that new grace will be provided.
This started to change my perspective in life. Before my cancer, I was more of a saver than a spender. I placed priority on excelling at work. My thinking when planning for the future was similar to the Parable of the Rich Fool (Luke 12:13-21). If I lived 100 years with that mindset, I would have missed countless opportunities for the glory of God to be demonstrated and experienced. God slowly changed me to start focusing on Him and appreciating just being alive for the day and appreciating all the blessings in my life. My problems became smaller. His glory became greater. The journey had ups and downs with many stumbles over the past 24 years.
During that time, I had a second cancer surgery in 2005, a third surgery in 2014, and a fourth in 2015. Each one was more complicated than the one before. I knew that statistically, my chances for a cancer free future decreased each time.
From a worldly perspective, the prospects for remaining alive longer become dimmer yet God has made my future life brighter by shining his glory brighter in my life.
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Additional Resources:
SONG: Jason Gray “Good to Be Alive”
Lyric excerpt: “I Want To Live Like There’s No Tomorrow, Lord”
https://youtu.be/4omFQJEAAVc?si=QKZgCYzRPKdOcgaR
Book: John Piper – Don’t Waste Your Life https://www.desiringgod.org/books/dont-waste-your-life. (Free download)