Over the next month or so we will be looking at a number of issues under the series banner ‘matters of life and death’. Of course, these are the ‘bookends’ of our time on earth: we are born, we live and we die. The part in the middle is mostly up to us. I have said in many funeral services that it is not just about the years in your life but the life in your years! All too often we are so pre-occupied about how we live and worried about death that we forget to make the most of this (potentially) incredible journey called life!
Even amongst its challenges, mistakes, pain and frustrations, life can be celebrated and enjoyed! We cannot always control life but we can determine the attitude we apply as we face each day. As Christians, I believe we should be the most optimistic people on the planet, not because our lives are all ‘sunshine and roses’ but because we know that this life will one day give way to something far better – eternal and awesome fellowship with Jesus Christ, our Lord, our saviour and the giver of everlasting life. I believe that when Jesus said, ‘I have come in order that you might have life – life in its fullness’ (John 10:10), he meant for those words to impact our hearts too, here in 2019. So let’s live a life that is filtered through him: full of hope, faith, love and optimism for the future and beyond!