Every Person's Prayer

When thinking of our own death everyone's prayer is the same, "Please God, let me die peacefully in my sleep, Amen."

For some Christians, this prayer is blessedly answered as they drift off into the comfort of sleep and will wake up in the glorious presence of God.

However, the majority of people meet death in some type of violence, accident or the worst fear, after a long period of injury, illness and pain.

In the case of prolonged suffering, our prayer as believers is naturally to make the suffering stop or give us the strength to maintain our faith through the ordeal and process of death. In other words, we don't want to lose the faith and comfort we had in God while we were healthy, now that we are sick and suffering greatly.

No sincere believer wants to quit or stumble when the finish line is in view!

I believe that this fear arises because we think that we are somehow attached to God simply by our faith and the amount of strength we have to "hold on" to Him. This is true to an extent; we are saved by faith (Mark 16:15-16; Ephesians 2:8). However, in good and especially bad times we remain attached to and part of God by His strength, not ours ... God invites us to enter into Him through faith, but He keeps us saved and guaranteed by the power of His Spirit (Ephesians 1:13-14).

This blessed assurance is eloquently expressed by the Apostle Paul in Romans 8:38-39:

³⁸...neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

And I add that not even extreme suffering at the end of life can separate us from Him or His love.