A Lesson from an Open Casket Funeral

As I looked at my friend’s body, the message was clear.  It’s a lesson that applies to both our personal lives and our professional lives: Your days are numbered; use the time you have well.

Image by Strauss Western, provided by Unsplash via Wix. Cropped.

Yesterday, I attended my third funeral in 5 weeks.  Two of them honored the lives of people who lived past the age of 90, but the third honored a man who was just a few years older than me.

As I looked at my friend’s body lying in the open casket during the viewing, the first thought that came to me was: This could be you.

And then I felt as though God was saying to me: Your days are numbered; use the time you have well.

This was not a premonition of an early demise.  God was not telling me that I will die soon.  He was encouraging me to live a more focused life: I can’t count on living for years to come, so I need to be disciplined about use the time I have while I have it.

That message is appropriate in our professional pursuits as well as our personal lives.

Numbering our days

This encounter at a casket made me think about how I use my time.

I am sometimes very productive in the ministries to which God has called me: Bible Study, writing, music, and connecting with others to try to support them and learn from them.

But there are days when I spend far too much time on things that, when I die, won’t have mattered much.

The psalmist says, “Teach us to number our days rightly, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12).

If we maintain an awareness that each day is gone forever when the day is done, it can help us use our days wisely.

We have so many ways to waste our precious time

Most people have favored ways of frittering away time.

I’m not talking about times of recreation, intentional reading, games, sports, and the like.  Those all have their place.  Humans need time for relaxation, downtime, and time with friends.

I’m talking about those times when we want to be productive, but we waste the opportunity on activities that, when we look back, didn’t help us achieve our goals for the day.

We have so many ways of doing this online: doomscrolling, clickbait, unproductive rabbit holes, and the endless string of videos your favorite social media platform will serve up for you if you let it.  It can be the seemingly limitless choices for binge-watching on streaming services, or even the mindless consumption of old-fashioned television.

For me, it is searching for new ways to put my retirement savings into socially responsible and financially rewarding funds or stocks.  The desire for socially responsible investing is a good thing.  I don’t want to profit from businesses that make money by selling products that contribute to the deaths of other people – tobacco, guns, military weapons, fossil fuels.  And Jesus even told a parable in which people were expected to invest wisely the money they had been given (Matt. 25:14-30).  But that goal should not be allowed to displace other goals I know God has for me.

Every person’s challenge is different.  We each have our own unique opportunities to do good and bring the light and love of God to the world around us.  And each of us face our own temptations and distractions that could keep us from that goal.  We all need to harness our time in order to be all we are meant to be.

Professionals in the workplace face the same challenge

People in business, government, schools, and other jobs face the same problem.  It can be easy to “major in the minors,” focus too much time on secondary issues, get sidetracked, and miss opportunities to do good.

Sometimes, this can happen because of an excessive focus on gaining the next dollar or the next “like,” at the expense of other things we care about: mentoring someone who is just starting out, helping a colleague deal with a problem, writing up a new proposal, researching the next good idea.

Numbering our days does not mean stepping on other people on the way to the top.  The wise heart that Psalm 90 refers to knows that we are meant for more than making money and defeating others.  How we treat other people is part of what truly matters, and time spent helping others is not frittering away our time.

Jesus says, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness” (Matt. 6:33), and the other things you need will be added to you.  Our measures of success and our allocation of time must be driven by our values, not by the seemingly urgent distractions of the moment.

Act while it is still day

Jesus says, “We have to do the works of the one who sent me while it is day.  Night is coming when no one can work” (John 9:4, NABRE).  There will not always be more time – more tomorrows – to do what we want to do.  We need to act while we can.  The “night” when we can’t work might be times when we must care for a sick loved one or deal with our own infirmities.  It might be an economic downturn or new leaders who don’t share your values.  It might be the gathering gloom of depression or dementia, or the night of death that all must eventually face.

No person knows when the darkness will come and no more work can be done.  We must do what we are called to do while we have time.

That is why the apostle Paul says, “Be careful then how you live, not as unwise people but as wise, making the most of the time, because the days are evil” (Eph. 5:15-16, NRSV).  It doesn’t take literal “evil” to keep us from doing good – we’re quite capable of wasting our precious time on things that aren’t inherently bad but keep us from fully pursuing the good goals we were meant for.

We don’t need a funeral to make change: We can make adjustments any time

 

God did not bring this to my mind to condemn me.  That’s not how God works.

I did not feel condemned; I felt loved.  God wants me to excel in fulfilling my calling and spreading light and love to those around me. 

The same is true for everyone.

Furthermore, God wants to help us as we try to manage our time.  Jesus offers us his Spirit, who gives us power to do what we are called to do (Acts 1:8; 2 Tim. 1:7).  He offers us his strength so that we won’t succumb to the distractions that lead us to fritter away our days.  He reminds us of who we are as children of God and helps us stay focused on our calling and purpose, in every season of our lives.

I know what I need to do.  Do you?

Let us take stock of how we us our time, and use well the time we have.  It won’t last forever.