Fear NotSample

I'm Afraid of Dying

"Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

Welsh poet Dylan Thomas' famous words were written for his dying father, grown weak and frail, urging him to fight against death. You know those feelings, don't you? Have you not felt the dread of being forced to let go of someone you love? Have you not felt the dread of the dying process?

The poet David felt it too. "Be merciful to me, O LORD, for I am in distress; my eyes grow weak with sorrow, my soul and body with grief. My life is consumed by anguish and my years by groaning; my strength fails because of my affliction, and my bones grow weak" (Psalm 31:9,10).

What makes dying even more stressful is the realization that we brought death into the world, that it is God's righteous punishment on human evil, that a grim judgment awaits. We know deep down inside that dying is not a sweet, natural part of the great circle of life, as Mufasa and Rafiki tells us in "The Lion King."

The dying process seems to tell us that everything is being taken away from us. Is that true? Lord, have mercy on us!

(Read the next devotion for God's reassurance.)