(The following is the April 28 devotional from my Next Step Devotions book. Before reading it, I suggest you read John 17 and pay close attention to verse 15.)
Do you ever wonder how long you will live on this Earth? David wrote, “Lord, make me aware of my end and the number of my days so that I will know how short-lived I am” (Ps. 39:4). People may have moments when they think they’d like to know when they will die, but God doesn’t reveal that to us in advance. If we knew, we might squander too many remaining days or live in unnecessary dread of the final days. Even though we don’t know the details ahead of time, we can be confident that we will not pass from this life to the next one minute sooner or later than God sovereignly wills or allows.
David was correct in saying, “every human being stands as only a vapor” (Ps. 39:5) compared to God’s eternal existence. But we can still trust that God knew us before we were born, loves us, protects us, and only allows what is consistent with his good, pleasing, and perfect will until and including when we die.
Understanding and explaining God’s sovereignty over life and death isn’t easy. Many have lost loved ones at an early age, sometimes under tragic circumstances, and we wonder how such things could ever be within God’s will. We may not explain such events to our satisfaction, much less to others. Still, we must believe in God’s goodness and sovereignty. We can be confident that Christian loved ones who died too soon (in our opinion) would not leave the Lord’s presence and return to this life even if they could.
When Jesus said, “I am not praying that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one” (v. 15), he knew that his followers’ days were perfectly numbered for his purposes. He knows that number; we do not, and that is as it should be. Trust him.
Next Step:
Consider the life spans of loved ones who have died. How did you feel when you first learned of their death? If much time has passed, how has God worked through that experience in ways you did not foresee?
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