If You Had One Week Left + “When They Close the Lid”
When They Close the Lid.
We have been to a lot of funerals in recent history. On Thursday, I was at another, and watched as the family walked to the casket to say that one, final, difficult goodbye. They took their places and the funeral director walked to the front of the casket and gently lowered the lid. Immediately the line “WHEN THEY CLOSE THE LID” came into my mind. Maybe someone has said it before and undoubtedly, many have written things and spoken things to a similar effect, but it has really stuck with me.
My time on this earth has an expiration date. None of us knows how or when we will make that appointment, but it is, after all, “appointed unto man once to die.” Unless the LORD returns first each of us has a final moment and a final breath. No one has yet beaten physical death, except for Jesus, and each of us has a moment where our loved ones will say goodbye and someone will close the lid.
When they close the lid….
Will I have done what I was supposed to do?
Will I have completed the assignments handed out by my Creator?
Will I have seized every day for the gift it was?
Will I have lived a life marked and shaped by forgiveness or bitterness? Love or hate? Victory or defeat?
Will that moment reveal a life lived God’s way or my way?
Will I have intentionally done my best to treat all people equally? Rich and poor? Popular or unpopular? Friend or enemy? Aged or child?
Will I have taken all the skills and talents and resources God placed under my management and used and grown them for His kingdom?
Will my “talents”, like those in the “parable of the talents” (MT 25:14-30) be multiplied or buried?
When they close the lid….
Will I have been spent on self or others?
Will the investment of my life—who I was as a person—have been ultimately for me or those around me?
Will I have been a conduit for God to channel love and mercy and grace and compassion and kindness to those He brought into my moments and my days?
Will I have repeatedly chosen joy over sorrow? Hope over despair? Trust over fear? And gratitude over entitlement and discontent?
I most certainly will have come through my own allotment of pain and suffering as meted out by God and life, as will we all.
None come through life unscathed. But …will I have come out better for it? Will I have suffered well?
When they close the lid….
Will my days have accumulated earthly wealth or eternal treasure?
Will it be a life marked by success and accolades but nothing that outlives me?
Will my life, that is “but a vapor” have counted?
Will others have seen Jesus in me, the Hope of Glory?
Will I have treated fellow travelers with tenderness and sympathy when they’ve stumbled and fallen?
Will I have searched out the deep things of God?
Will I have known His vast love and His grand plan of redemption?
Will I have partnered with Him in knowing what is required for salvation and helping others find it?
Will I know and be known of Him?
And when they close the lid….
Will I hear Him say, “Well done,” …for those are the two words worth living for!
Let me live with the end in view, however and whenever it comes.
“So teach us to number our days,
that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.”
—Moses, Psalm 90:12
The veil between time and eternity is thin….let me be ready for that moment when they
close the lid.