The smell of death was already beginning to fill the air in the room; it’s a smell that I’ve come to recognize over the past five or six years. I had arrived at the facility a short time ago and was now cautiously standing at the doorway of Don’s nursing home room. I had been asked by Don’s distraught family to come to the facility to sit and pray with Don. His family was on their way, but they wanted
me to be with him first to encourage him (if I could) due to his actively dying state.
He was squirming anxiously in his bed, rolling to the right and to the left in what appeared to be an attempt to escape the torment of his own existence. I could hear the sounds of the IV dripping morphine into Don’s veins. The sound became quite monotonous after a few minutes. Drip, drip, drip sounds echoed through the room, and I had the passing thought that it resembled the faint sound of a ticking time bomb, counting down second by second until the moment when Don’s life would come to an end.
Don appears somewhat unresponsive to the world around him. I stand still in the doorway watching this man who has become my friend and someone who has opened my eyes to the importance of making each minute of my life count. As I continue to observe this man whom I have met with in these last days of his life, I remember the choices he has made in his lifetime, choices that affected and
shortened Don’s span of life, and that changed the future of his family. I remember the regret that he has been feeling over the past five months due to the life that he has consciously wasted, and I think of the poor decisions he has made. I knew Don didn’t have assurance in his heart that his position was secure in the kingdom of God. But I also knew that he did repent and rededicate his life to the Lord, so forgiveness and grace was rewarded to him. Don was living these last few months of life in a state of regret and guilt; Don apparently was dying in this state as well.
This rolls back my memory to the first day that I met with Don, and his family.
What am I doing here at the age of twenty five, visiting with someone on their deathbed? That thought ran through the depths of my mind the first time I pulled up to Don’s home. I had just begun working in this ministry of visiting with the dying and encouraging them in the Lord. The concern that popped in and out of my mind was whether or not I was qualified to handle this type of work. I arrived at Don’s front door on an overcast afternoon. I knocked and then waited a moment before knocking again. A woman answered the door and introduced herself as Don’s wife. She invited me in to have a seat, and then offered me some water
before she called her husband to wake him up from his afternoon nap. Don was a new patient to me, a forty-five year old male, terminally diagnosed with alcohol-related liver cirrhosis. This would be my first of many visits with Don and his family.
Don staggered into the room wincing and shrugging; I could tell he was in pain. After introductions were made I asked Don the same question I ask allmy new patients.
“What is your religious background?”
Don told me that he was a Christian man now, but when he was younger he’d lived a life on the streets and saw no need for faith. Don gave his life over to
the Lord, and soon after he and his wife got married. Don has four kids, two dogs, and a beautiful family home. His life was blessed and he and his wife had ambitions of one day becoming ministers; however, the decisions he made altered the lives of his kids and his wife, as well as his own life, for eternity.
Don started going out with the guys for a drink after work, coming home late and becoming more and more detached from his family. Some time later Don told his family that he no longer wanted to be a family man and left with his bags packed. What had been a beautiful family home quickly degenerated into one that was broken and confused. One day almost five years later Don’s wife heard a knock on the door. She answered the door, and to her surprise, there was Don standing on her porch and hardly recognizable to her. Don had lost over a
hundred pounds and was weak and very sick. Don told her he was dying, and that he had a prognosis of six months to live. With no money, no health insurance,
and no place to live, Don asked if he could once again become part of the family until he passed away.
It’s true that many of us would have found difficulty granting a request of this measure. His wife could have had many doubts. What about the other women he had been with? What about the alcohol? What about the abandonment? However, Don’s wife found this to be a great opportunity for her and the kids to demonstrate Christ’s love of grace, forgiveness, and acceptance (Matthew 25). She also found
a great need to demonstrate this longsuffering love to her children, who had once been left abandoned by their now declining father and were about to be
abandoned by him again through his demise.
I asked Don what emotion would best describe how he felt at this moment. Don shrugged his shoulders and stated, “I have learned something; most
people live in the future, always looking ahead, whether it is looking forward to a vacation, a promotion at work, or retirement. At this point in my life, I live in the past. Since I have nothing to look forward to, I examine the choices I’ve made and how those choices have affected my life and my family’s life.”
Don was quiet for a moment and then stated quietly, “And so with that said, my emotion … my condition … is regret.”
It was at that moment when I realized that the condition Don was living in is one that could have been prevented. If only he would have repented and changed the course of his life sooner. If only he had more time to restore his family and redeem his life. The truth is that the decisions Don had made in the past were not salvageable, and sorrow over those decisions had set in. You see, the condition that Don was living in is the same that most of us live in – one of regret.
The reason for this is due to the way we live our lives. We live for ourselves. Rather than being pleasing to our family, we seek to be pleased by our family. Rather than being pleasing to our employer, we seek to be pleased by our employer. And dare I say it — rather than being pleasing to God we sometimes
expect Him to please us. There is a pattern here that cannot go unnoticed. The pattern is our desire to be pleased, rather than being what we are called to be
— pleasing to God.
2 Corinthians 5:9 - Therefore we make it our
aim, whether present or absent to be well
pleasing to Him.
The same is true of service. In a time when we can pay anybody to do anything for us, our attitude is to be served by all, rather than being a servant to all. The words written in red in the Bible were spoken by Jesus Himself, and they portray what the condition of our heart should be.
Matthew 20:27-28 - And whoever desires
to be first among you, let him be your slave,
just as the son of man did not come to be
served, but to serve, and to give His life a
ransom for many.
Philippians 2:4 - Let each of you look out
not only for his own interests, but also for the
interests of others. Let this mind be in you
which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in
the form of God, did not consider it robbery
to be equal with God, but made himself
of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant,
and coming into the likeness of men.
And being found in appearance as a man, He
humbled himself and became obedient to the
point of death, even death on a cross.
This describes our desire to be the god of our own life, to live based on our compulsions, addictions, and selfishness. This was the way Don had lived his
life. He had learned the hard way that filling your own belly ultimately leads you on a path of destruction to the eventual state of regret.
Most people at the end stage of their life feel a sense of sadness, and
sometimes they display anger at God or quite possibly the physician who never
really knew what he was doing anyway. Others are in a state of denial, seeking a second or third opinion, as well as alternative herbal cures or medications.
Don’s demeanor did carry the appearance of sadness, anger, and disbelief, yet his condition … his emotion? Regret.
I asked Don to explain why he used the word regret. Don explained that though he felt the sadness most would feel after receiving such a poor prognosis, he mainly felt sadness as a result of leaving his family to fulfill his selfish needs and lusts. Don was angry at himself for thinking only about himself, for pleasing his own desires rather than those of his family.
And the guilt, oh boy, Don sure did feel the guilt….
Don stated, “I look at my family every day and realize I don’t know them; they’ve all moved on in life without me. They all find joy in everyday life, but they’re emotionally reserved when I’m around, almost like they wish I was already dead. I abandoned my family to pursue happiness only to find sadness, anger, and remorse.”
I tried to find a comforting word for Don (hurry Joe, say something encouraging, I was thinking urgently). The fact is that what he had said only
brought a particular scriptural truth to my mind.
Matthew 10:39 - He who finds his life will
lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake
will find it.
This scripture explains that if we plan on seeking to preserve and hold on to our life through the pursuit of our own fleshly desires and by making ourselves
happy, we will lose all that makes life have any worth. Our focus will be distracted from looking at the truly important things in life. We won’t have our eyes on our family or the opportunities God sends our way to allow us to be a blessing to others and to Him.
But we must choose to live our life as a servant to the Lord. We must make the decision to lay down our own life and its desires. We will find a fulfilled life here on earth and blessings for the rest of eternity.
Don had left his family seeking his own will And how he could please himself. And what can be said about that life he so desperately wanted, the life he chased to the ends of the earth, the life he held onto at the expense of losing his family? We now see that his desire led him to spiritual poverty, and would also lead him to an early grave due to a disease he had that was directly related to his alcoholism. All of this destruction was a result of escaping the reality of life, striving to find a life that never was and never will be. Don did his best to hold on to his life, but
ultimately, it’s his life that he will lose.
Psalm 39:4-5 - Lord, make me to know my
end, and what is the measure of my days, that
I may know how frail I am. Indeed you have
made my days as handbreadths, And my age
is as nothing before you; Certainly every man
at his best state is but vapor.
It is a certainty that this life will end. How it will end depends on what we choose. Will it be looking back at the dimwitted decisions we’ve made? Or will we be able to look back at the blessings and the provisions that God has made on our behalf? Will we end our life with the peace of mind that comes from knowing we’ve carried the cross for the Lord and remained faithful to our family? Or will we come to the end of our life regretting certain decisions we’ve made over the course of our life? The decision is up to us and how we respond at this moment of truth.
Whatever the cause, regret is still regret, and it’s a tragic way to live, and die.
I’m reminded of a very well-known man in Scripture, Judas Iscariot. Judas walked and talked with Jesus, ate and prayed with Him, and willingly followed Him for three years, and et he still betrayed Jesus in the end. It’s important for us to remember, however, that Judas was chosen by Jesus as one of
His disciples.
Judas was a man with a green eye, you might say. Yes, you guessed it; he liked money. Judas had a genuine hunger to fulfill his own greedy desires, and
as we see in Scripture, he would do almost anything to obtain it. In the book of John chapter 12, Scripture explains that Judas was in charge of the disciples’
money box, and he used to steal from it on a regular basis. We also see that Judas didn’t have a pure heart for loving people or a real concern for the poor.
In John 12:5-6 Judas says, “Why was this fragrant oil not sold for three hundred Denali’s and given to the poor?” This he said, not that he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief, and had the money box; and he used to take what was in it.
This greedy behavior had more of a hold on Judas than Judas had on it. In the book of Luke we read that Judas knew that the chief priests were looking for some way to get rid of Jesus. Scripture states that Satan entered Judas Iscariot, and at that time Judas went to the chief priests and the officers of
the temple to work out an arrangement of how Jesus could be captured. Judas would be paid an amount of thirty coins to lead the chief priests and the elders
to Jesus.
Scripture tells us that after Jesus was captured and sentenced to death, Judas Iscariot was seized with a feeling of deep remorse. Judas went back to the chief
priests and the officers of the temple to explain his regret for what he had done. Judas realized that he had betrayed the innocent blood of a friend.
The chief priests made a statement to Judas that I have trouble overlooking, and which brings a level of conviction to me concerning decisions I’ve made
in the past and later regretted. They said (and I paraphrase), “What is it to us that you’re feeling remorse?
“That’s your responsibility.”
MY RESPONSIBILITY?!?
That could have been the response that Judas had in his heart. However, Judas did come to the conclusion that his remorse indeed was his responsibility,
because his betrayal of Jesus had been his choice; he had made his decision, and ultimately Judas had the responsibility to weigh the pros and cons, if you
will. We see that because of Judas’ remorse, as well as the unforgiving words of the chief priests, Judas threw the thirty coins on the ground and went away
to commit suicide. Judas threw his life away because of his decision to seek riches rather than the righteousness
of God.
You see, the decisions we make belong to us. The results of those decisions are our responsibility. In my meetings with people at the end of their lives, I’ve
come to find that they regret two things: They regret the things they have done, and they regret the things that they have not done. In both cases the symptoms
of their regret are the same.
There is an overwhelming sense of emptiness, remorse over the fact that time has run out, sadness that they’ve wasted so much time, anger and sometimes
even resentment towards themselves or their family.
We can be honest and say that we’ve all been there. We’ve all said stupid, done stupid, and been stupid in our lives. We can all look back at our lives and wish we had done something differently, or that we had closed our mouth before that rude insensitive comment left our lips.
The truth is we all want our families to speak highly of us when we pass away. Living a life of truth and faithfulness is a legacy that will be passed on in our families for generations to come. We all want to make clear, conscious decisions, and even more importantly, we want to be pleasing to the Lord.
In the next few chapters I will give you a small account of different meetings I’ve had with people at the end of their lives. Throughout this book will pop in on Don from time to time to see how he is doing. I pray that you will prayerfully take a look at your own life. Evaluate and examine yourself (2Corinthians 13:5), and make the appropriate changes now so that you can live your life and then ultimately come to the end of your life without having any regrets.
