Short Life: Living for What Matters During our Few Days on Earth

By Michael Edward Nichols

Motivates people to pick up Short Life because it promises to change the way they view and experience all of life

Readers take away the possession of a powerful, ever-present lens to look at every aspect of life

Helps readers to grow in understanding their own value and core identity

Helps readers to produce character fruit (inner and outer transformations) in their lives and improve their relationships with others

Motivates readers to use the time they have left on earth to make a difference and to finish well

Great for a 40-day pre-Easter Lenten season or a 40-day individual spiritual exercise

Great for small group studies

Great for extended church sermon series (e.g. an annual sermon series minus the summer season)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Morgan James Faith
• Release date: Aug 4, 2020
• ISBN: 9781642799729

Michael Edward Nichols

Michael Edward Nichols has been professor of Intercultural Studies at Lincoln Christian University in Lincoln, Illinois for the last 25 years. He is also the main teaching pastor at the Mason City, IL Christian Church. He previously served as a youth pastor in an Illinois church for 5 years and a missionary in Africa (Democratic Republic of the Congo) for 10 years. He holds BA and MA degrees from LCU and a PhD degree in Intercultural Studies from Trinity International University (TEDS). Michael’s greatest passions in life are teaching youth, cross-cultural missions, and being a spiritual father to the fatherless. He has published articles in the Evangelical Missions Quarterly and the Trinity Journal. He has written a PhD dissertation on the topic of leadership transition in the DR Congo, published electronically by ProQuest. He currently resides in the country near Greenview, IL.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION: THE DASH LIFE

Life is too short not to focus on the dash

We knew everything about life except how to live it.

E. Stanley Jones

Death clarifies everything. Indeed, thinking about our death can teach us how to live for what really matters. Linda Ellis’s famous poem The Dash encourages people to think about the dash that will one day be carved on their tombstone. Tombstones are inscribed with two dates—a date of birth and a date of death—usually with a small dash between. What matters most is not when you were born or when you die, but how you lived during the period represented by the dash. That is what this book is about: living for what matters during the short time we have on Earth. Sometimes, when I officiate at a graveside service, I encourage participants to look about at the tombstones surrounding us. I remind them that one day, a stone will be etched with their own name. Then I challenge them to spend some time in reflection before returning to their cars and homes, examining their lives to see how they are living during the dash.

I have a friend who loves to spend time in cemeteries, especially when facing a big challenge or an important decision. She says that doing so gives her perspective. Focusing on your own death might seem morbid, but I have found it just the opposite. Death clarifies everything, helping us realign our priorities. And because the thought of death can motivate us to do the important things that we should be doing, I think we need to think about our own death more often than we do.

I started writing this book during the summer I turned 50. I am finally publishing after turning 60. Life seems to be flying by. Many times over the last few years I have thought I need to get this book done before my life on Earth is over, or no one will ever be helped by it! During my twenty-five years of teaching at Lincoln Christian University (LCU) in Lincoln, Illinois, I have seen students die for a variety of reasons. This book includes the stories of two LCU students who lost battles with cancer, one at age 32 and the other at age 26. Seeing the terribly short dashes on their tombstones reminds me that my own dash could end soon.

Reminders of the brevity of life are all around, sometimes even coming in the mail. I was shocked to realize how much I was aging when I received a membership application from AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) the summer when I turned 50. As I wondered why I would be receiving mail from AARP, it hit me like a ton bricks: I became eligible to be an AARP member by turning 50! Something about the number 50 intimidated me—50 felt old. Turning 50 reminded me that I was getting closer to my death—that I had fewer years left to live than I had already lived. I honestly had never thought of myself as being old before I received that letter.

I now intentionally surround myself with reminders of life’s brevity. When I pick up a newspaper, I turn to the obituary page to read about people who have died after living lives shorter than my own. Doing so reminds me that I might die at any time. It also helps me think of the days and years that extend my life as being days and years of grace. In the last few years, I have lost three dear friends, one aged 43, one aged 61 and the other aged 62. I carry all three of their pictures in my day timer to remind me daily that life is short—that I have no guarantee of living a certain number of years.

For some time now, I have wanted to write a book on the only subject on which I feel qualified to write—my life. I have asked the Lord to give me a spirit of openness and transparency as I write. The writers who have influenced me most over the years have been those who have courageously shared lessons they have learned from brokenness, wounds, and struggles in their own lives. What I write comes from my own spiritual journey—from birth to 60 years old. I pray that some of these life lessons will resonate within your own soul. I also pray that you will share your own spiritual journey with others. As someone reminded me recently, our stories don’t belong to ourselves. Rather, our stories belong to each other, and ultimately they belong to God, the author of life. We should all want to live well during our brief time on Earth, but we should also want to help others live well. I pray that reading this book will help you live your life for what matters, influencing others to do the same.

Every week, I try to read from the works of Henri Nouwen and E. Stanley Jones, now dead, who in their writings mentor me in my life’s journey. I hope that long after I have put aside my earthly tent, a few people will still read this book. I will try my best to be authentic and transparent, writing about things I hope will strike a chord in your heart, helping you in your journey with the Lord. No one should travel through life alone—so I hope these meditations of a fellow traveler help you in your own life’s journey.

Why forty chapters? Forty is a very special number in Scripture. Noah experienced forty days of rain, Moses stayed forty days on Mt. Sinai, Joshua and Caleb explored the Promised Land for forty days, Elijah was strengthened for forty days by a single meal, Nineveh was given forty days to repent, and Jesus fasted forty days in the wilderness—and appeared to his followers for forty days after his resurrection. I challenge you to take forty days—or maybe forty weeks—to explore your inner and outer worlds, deeply examining your life. You might find some giants that need slaying, as Joshua and Caleb did. And if you do, I pray you will respond, I can do this with God’s help. The ten other spies, along with most of the Israelites, didn’t think that conquering the Promised Land was possible, and their doubt sent them wandering forty years in the wilderness. I pray that this book will help you build your faith so that you are ready to take the territory that God wants you to conquer in your own life on earth. I also pray that you will take this forty-day (or forty-week) challenge to think about the brevity of your life and consider how to live, during your own dash, for the things that matter.

LIFE APPLICATION

1.Write your date of birth on a card, then follow it with a dash and a question mark; highlight the dash if you like. Then put the card where you will see it every day.

2.Set aside a regular time each week or month to think intentionally about your death, perhaps in a nearby cemetery.

3.Read one chapter of this book every day for the next forty days, or every week for the next forty weeks. Find someone with whom to discuss the life application suggestions that end each chapter.

PART ONE

The SHORT LIFE Impacts your Inner World

CHAPTER 2

THE ALERT LIFE

Life is too short to sleep through

Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when that time will come.

Mark 13:33

So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be alert and self-controlled.

1 Thessalonians 5:6

May 27, 2008, was a very sad day for me. On that day, Bob Szoke let people know that his son Steve’s earthly journey was over: Steve had gone on to be with the Lord. Steve lost a hard-fought battle with colon cancer, dying just a few days short of his thirty-third birthday and leaving behind a wife and 7-year-old daughter. Steve had been one of my favorite students at Lincoln Christian University. He had a passion for evangelism like no one else’s and had given his life to reaching people who, as he said, fall through the cracks of life. Steve had a huge heart for at-risk youth in the Chicagoland area, and he yearned to plant a church that would welcome and disciple them. I had been praying for Steve since I first learned he had been diagnosed with cancer, but I was still shocked by an email he sent just two months before he died:

So, I’m not even quite sure how to write this. I went to bed last night and woke up today believing my doctor was going to call with good news and tell me that today was my first day of remission. Nothing could be further from the truth of the situation. I was instead called in for a consultation and told I was now in stage 4 colon cancer. Candy and I went in and were informed that these past 8 months of chemo and radiation were a complete wash and that I did not respond to the medicine at all. That I, in fact, had small cancerous nodules throughout the lining of my abdominal wall. What does that mean? He told me that I would need a new kind of chemo to combat this, that I would now be in chemo on a weekly basis and that I might be looking at 1–3 years left of my life. The one thing I did not want to hear from my doctor’s mouth is him giving me days on a calendar, which is exactly what he did. I want to thank everyone for their prayers and ask them to continue to pray for me. I have no problem continuing to fight tooth and nail for my life. The one thing I have always wanted in life is to grow old with my wife (whom I love so deeply) and to be there for my child (whom I also love so deeply). This news does put things in perspective for me; how could it not? Now is the time that I need my friends and family the most. I said in a sermon this past Sunday that throughout this disease, there have been many times that I have completely collapsed under the weight and burden of everything and just asked God to carry me. My God has not abandoned me, He’s just needing to carry me a little further.

One morning, I received my own wake-up call. I was in a hurry to get to work when my preschool-aged daughter, Sammy, lying on the couch in the family room, caught me just before I reached the door and yelled, Daddy! Would you find Barney for me on the TV? My first thought? Sorry kid—I’m late, and I’m outta here! But I hesitated, decided to be a good daddy, and took an extra minute to find the channel for Barney the purple dinosaur before flying out the door. I jumped in my little red Nova and raced onto the blacktop road in front of our house—only to see a huge semi-truck lying on its side a hundred yards from our house. The accident had just happened. The driver, having clambered out of his cab, was talking to a bystander in a pickup truck, who was calling the police. Then the driver was on the phone with the police, explaining how he lost control of his rig while swerving to miss a deer. I was completely shaken—my life could have been over that morning had I not taken a minute to be a good father to my daughter. I envisioned an accident between a semi-truck and a little red Nova—the Nova lost. I reflected on this wake-up call for a long time afterward.

A dear missionary friend wrote about a wake-up call in her own life. Just a week after returning to her country of service in Southeast Asia, a 25-year-old friend of hers, whom I’ll call Ruth, was killed in a truck accident, leaving behind a husband and two small sons. The news caused my own friend to fear God in her own life, realizing that she hadn’t the slightest idea when God would take her home. I was moved by her challenge:

If you have something you need to do now—do it now! If you want to serve God, decide to serve him now! If you want to draw close to God—draw close to him now! If you need to repent—repent now! If you need to love those who oppose you—love them now! Tell those who are not loveable that you love them. Everything that you do, you must do it with a pure heart and a heart that loves God, because time will not wait for you. We don’t know when God is going to take us or when Christ is going to return!

When I read her wake-up call, two phrases jumped off the page at me: we don’t know when and do it now. At times I am tempted to postpone things that the Lord is prompting me to do, but these seven words motivate me to action.

Earthly life can certainly be very short, sometimes being counted in days, not years. Several years ago, I visited with friends in Ottawa, Canada, who had lost a child a few months before. Mark and Rachel’s little Joshua lived only twenty-nine days. He was their first child, as well as the first grandchild on one side of the family. Mark and Rachel were grieving deeply, but they were grieving as Christians, people who have hope beyond the grave. I found them thanking the Lord for the twenty-nine days they had with little Joshua, looking forward to seeing him again in heaven. On the other end of the spectrum about that same time, my wife, Julie, traveled to Canada to celebrate her grandmother’s ninety-ninth birthday—which, as things turned out, was her last. Both a twenty-nine-day life and a ninety-nine-year life are, from God’s point of view, brief. We don’t know when God will call us home—so do it, whatever it is; now!

Wake-up calls are all around. Just look at the news, or even at events unfolding around you. On August 19, 2009, a tornado hit the small town of Williamsville, Illinois, near my home, leveling a Casey’s convenience store and an antique store where a friend of mine worked—though fortunately she wasn’t there at the time. The same tornado struck a country house just two miles from our own. That same day, a high school friend of our daughter Sammy, miraculously walked away from a serious truck accident. That day awakened me to the brevity of life. And there have been other such days, including the one when my good friend Travis told me he had hit a deer head-on while driving down the interstate at eighty miles per hour. He told me he never saw the animal—only felt the crash and the air bag deploying. Then later, while on a vacation trip in Wyoming, I, too, hit a deer head-on on the interstate. And Travis was right—I was frightened by how quickly the accident came and went.

When I was 41 years old, I began to feel as if God were trying to get my attention. That year, three different men whom I knew, all aged 41, died—one in a car wreck and two from brain aneurysms of which they had been unaware. That year, I started thinking seriously about my own mortality. Strange how we try to constantly push our inevitable death out of our minds! I have come to believe that we must do just the opposite. If we can learn to intentionally consider our own impending death, then we change death from an enemy to be feared into a wise teacher for which to be thankful. Be alert to the wake-up calls around you so that death can teach you how to live.

LIFE APPLICATION

1.Can you remember a wake-up call that you have received? What do you think God was saying to you through it?

2.What memory triggers can you put in your life to remind you of your life’s brevity and of your own mortality?

3.If you knew you had only two months to live, what would you do? What if a doctor gave you only one to three years to live?

CHAPTER 3

THE BRIEF LIFE

Life is too short not to realize how quickly it passes

Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

Psalm 90:12

He remembered that they were but flesh, a passing breeze that does not return.

Psalm 78:39

The brevity of life is a major theme in the Bible. In Psalm 39, David asks the Lord to show him his life’s end and then uses three metaphors to illustrate a simple theme: Life is brief. David describes life as a mere handbreadth, a quick breath, and a fleeting phantom. Compared to an eternal God who has no beginning or end, our earthly life span seems a mere blip. When I think of life as a single breath, I’m reminded of someone blowing out a long breath on a cold morning, only to see it quickly evaporate.

Show me, LORD, my life’s end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting is my life. You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Each man’s life is but a breath. Man is a mere phantom as he goes to and fro: He bustles about, but only in vain; he heaps up wealth, not knowing who will get it. But now, Lord, what do I look for? My hope is in you. (Psalm 39:4–7)

These rich metaphors are set in the context of a busy person who gives no thought to the length of life. The phrase bustles about especially resonates with people of our time. A person can be so busy trying to get ahead that he or she fails to remember that the race might be nearly over!

Praying David’s prayer might do us good. You could say that David is asking God to help him visualize his own funeral. When I read Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, I took his challenge to visualize my own funeral. I tried to think of who would be crying and who would be indifferent. I tried to imagine my pallbearers, as well as what various speakers would say about me. And I found that visualizing one’s own funeral is an effective way of setting life goals.

The Bible is rich with metaphors about the brevity of life. In one prominent example, Moses uses the illustration of grass: [God sweeps] men away in the sleep of death; they are like the new grass of the morning—though in the morning it springs up new, by evening it is dry and withered (Ps 90:5–6). I have mowed grass every summer since I was in the fifth grade. Keeping up with it during the spring rains and the early summer is difficult, but by late summer, it becomes dry, brown, and dead. Paying attention to the grass could teach us something about how quickly our lives on Earth pass.

The prophet Isaiah adds another metaphor—flowers: All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall (Isa 40:6–7). I don’t know a lot about growing flowers, but I know how much my wife loves them when I bring some home to her. I also know that they can be expensive. I love the expression of joy I see on Julie’s face when I give her flowers, but I hate how quickly flowers wilt and die, even when kept in water. Paying attention to flowers could also teach us something about the brevity of life.

In his turn, Job says, My days are swifter than a runner; they fly away without a glimpse of joy (Job 9:25). By runner, Job doesn’t mean a marathon runner, methodically running twenty-six miles. Rather, think about Olympic sprinters, who finish a hundred-meter race in fewer than ten seconds.

In the New Testament, James warns those who make plans for tomorrow:

Now listen, you who say, Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money. Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that. (Jas 4:13–15)

Think for a moment about mist, whether an early morning fog that burns off as the sun rises or