Life is a test to learn how to die
If you're wondering why stop at the title, I'll tell you that this life makes no sense if you don't prepare for death. I'm not talking about a self-inflicted death, but about waiting for that moment. A bit like that phrase people often use: until God calls me to Himself.
And in the phrase people use, the answer is often found too. That same God, recognised as that guy waiting for us up there, is the One who watches, appreciates, judges and passes sentence.
That God, judged as the author of someone's unjust death, is the One who leaves us free to live this life without condemning us to anything. On the contrary, He tries to receive your trust and to give you a reason on which to build your life.
I too thought many times that it was absurd to live hoping and thinking about what would come after death. Over the years, facing defeats and finding that through Him everything really changed, I pushed myself to discover, and to be able to say, that with God things really do change.
Now, it's not that things change "with God", because everyone has their own god. I'm talking about that God, Lord, Father, whose son is called Yeshua, who died, rose again and redeemed my sin too, who woke me up from those feelings of guilt, from the lies, the defeats, from those wrong attitudes and ways of behaving. Not only this, but much more has changed my life. Certainly through the realisation that the truth lay precisely in the words and the story of That Son, in what He was going through and what we all know. What, "figuratively", I went through and go through every time they take me to be crucified for a thought of mine, for going against the current, for being sincere and realistic. Relating to that figure made me understand how much I could inherit by imitating That behaviour of His. All this identifying of mine has brought so much, really so much, into my life.
Today I can say that, despite constantly putting myself on the line, I am more and more aware that this life is a continuous test to know well what awaits us after death. Every test is a conquest in learning how to die.
You can die "while alive" in order to start living again, that is, die humanly to defeat your carnal life, while still aware of always being here in the fight. "Here" I mean in the example of a life, "here" in your memory, "here" making you read and reread that the after is much more important than what you think you are accumulating "here" on Earth.
You too, learn to die in some of your wrong attitudes, in the wrong words used in conversation, in your crumbling way of living, to start living despite the spitting, the slaps, the kicks and the nails that pierce you with pain, knowing that your tomb will not be dark but open to life.
Faith? Learn to believe in what you can't see and to hope in what is to come.
After all, the word creates, and founding your faith on a Word that is already powerful in itself makes you eternal, because the promise is eternal. Once "He" made a promise and, since He could not swear by anyone Greater, He swore by His own name. Today that promise is still valid and marks a way, a truth (Sacred and Holy) to an eternal life. Believe it (word of a former unbeliever). After all, it's a challenge between you and Him, and He, believe me if you like, won't let you down.
Happy experimenting.
Inspired by the verse:
Hebrews 11:1
Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.
You live as one already dead, but you can start living again by dying to yourself and living for eternity