I have a confession to make.
I have secretly viewed and laughed out loud while watching a YouTube video displaying a series of botched tattoos.
My favorite was the misspelled tattoo that said “no regerts.”
Sometimes we carry constant reminders of past mistakes with us. Some are humorous, while some are painful.
Last year, I had an experience I will never forget. It rattled me emotionally and caused countless hours of work for which I was unprepared.
A longtime friend, whom I will call Ken, was a very wealthy financial advisor. I had been instrumental in his faith journey and watched him grow into a strong believer who brought many to faith in Christ.
Both his parents had died during COVID. He himself was nearing seventy, and his own health was becoming precarious.
One day, Ken called me, agitated, and asked me to visit. He never married and had no children. Assuming he had only a few years left, he shared that after he passed, he wanted his millions of dollars to be placed entirely into a private foundation dedicated to spreading the Gospel worldwide.
When I asked whether this was written down in a will, he replied bluntly: “Not yet.”
At my urging, Ken set an appointment with a lawyer for a few days later. However, the next day I found Ken’s lifeless body in his home, the apparent result of a massive stroke. His will was never completed. Over the next year, his entire estate was distributed to relatives who had little connection with Ken while he was alive and who did not share his faith.
The sense of total loss was jarring to my soul. My unanswered questions were turned into prayers, such as “Lord, this brother served You well. Couldn’t You have kept him alive for a few more days?”
I may never know the answers to my questions, but I will never forget the lesson I learned:
You can live well without dying well.
This was not a situation like the story Jesus told in Luke 12:16-21, about the rich man who builds bigger barns for his own wealth without taking thought about his own soul. Ken loved Jesus and lived for Him. He left behind a legacy of bringing many lives to faith in Christ. He just didn’t prepare well for his own passing.
Sadly, he is not alone in this.
You can live well without dying well.
How does this happen? How do men miss out on this?
The first reason is that forces in our culture work hard to remove any sense of urgency about our own passing. We would rather talk about the emerging group of so-called “super agers” who can still play tennis and run an eight-minute mile at ninety years old! And we look forward to when science eventually unlocks the secret to triple-digit lifespans. Death feels like a faraway problem that we have time to wait on.
Second, we don’t grieve well. In 1981, almost 90% of families chose to have a funeral service with a casket followed by a burial.[1] Forty-five years later, only one in four families chooses to have a casketed funeral service, and a growing majority chooses cremation with no memorial service at all.[2] We prefer not to have any visual reminders of what happened.
Third, we also invent and entertain fantastical diversions to temporarily quiet the fear of our own demise. Popular movies feature vampires who live for centuries and superheroes who can fall out of an airplane or be blown into the stratosphere and survive without ripping their cape.
Jesus told His followers that they ought to see themselves as living in this world, but not of this world (John 17:14-16). We shouldn’t blindly follow cultural norms without sifting and sorting the helpful from the harmful.
Here are a few suggestions to help men prepare well:
1. Deal with your past so that it doesn’t deal with you.
I knew my friend Ken well enough to know that his illogical avoidance of creating a will was rooted in the pain of suddenly losing both his parents. Confronting his future meant bringing up his painful past. It was easier to avoid it. But the cost of that delay was far steeper than Ken had imagined.
Don’t just bury the emotional pain of your past. Time alone does not heal. Denial is not freedom. Like toxic waste, emotional pain in your soul doesn’t evaporate or biodegrade. It will leak into your present life. Get in touch with the pain, even if it requires a counselor to resolve. Your heavenly Father wants to take your past out of your present so that you can embrace your future.
2. Watch out for “coasting” through middle age.
Ultimately, your life will carry a message to those who follow. Take stock of how you want to be remembered and how you want your resources to be invested after you pass from this life. Search the stories of heroes in the Old Testament, and most were either young people or seniors. Energetic youth embrace the call to do great things more quickly than middle-aged people, who face more disappointments and greater responsibilities. Seniors, being reminded that their future time is short, may reach out to accomplish that one last great thing. But middle age can be an insidious usurper of the urgency we need to evaluate our priorities and make sure we are prepared to look after those we will leave behind.
3. Know what you value most.
To die well, we must consider two moments: the day before we die and the day after we die. It’s not morbid to consider these. It’s prudent. Would either day bring regrets to the surface? Most regrets stem from quick decisions that do not take either of these two days into account. Wisdom is defined by considering the future impact of present decisions. Think generationally, not just situationally. Consider how others will feel and be impacted when you leave this earth, either with or without notice. What do you want your legacy to be? Starting now, make your plans accordingly.
What do you want your legacy to be?
We know that, for the Christ-follower, death is not the end. We look forward with hope to the day when we are with the Lord, and we leave all our earthly troubles aside (e.g., Philippians 1:21-23; 2 Corinthians 5:1-8; Revelation 21:3-5; etc.).
Still, as mature men who take our responsibilities seriously, may we ensure that we are leaving this world well, taking care of those we leave behind, and leaving a legacy of faith and wisdom that will long outlast us.
[1] FTC (Federal Trade Commission) 1981 survey in the USA
[2] According to the NFDA (National Funeral Directors Association)
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