In the opening of Tim Keller’s new book, “Walking with God through Pain and Suffering,” he quotes a writer in The New York Times Magazine during the time of the Beltway Sniper, a fellow who was shooting people at random throughout the Washington, D. C. area.

Ann Patchett wrote:
“We are always looking to make some sort of sense out of murder in order to keep it safely at bay: I do not fit the description; I do not live in that town; I would never have gone to that place, known that person. But what happens when there is no description, no place, nobody? Where do we go to find our peace of mind?

“The fact is, staving off our own death is one of our favorite national pastimes.  Whether it’s exercise, checking our cholesterol or having a mammogram, we are always hedging against mortality.  Find out what the profile is, and identify the ways in which you do not fit it. But a sniper taking a single clean shot, not into a crowd but through the sight, reminds us horribly of death itself.  Despite our best intentions, it is still for the most part, random. 

And it is absolutely coming.”

In the early 1990s after we moved to New Orleans, I tried to assure my mother that she should not be concerned about our safety in this part of the metro area. “The murder rate in Jefferson Parish is about the same as in Jasper,” the nearest town of any size to our Alabama farmhouse.

I would point out that the murders were usually gang-related, that drugs were involved, and confined to certain areas of town.

I was doing the very thing Ann Patchett says. Trying to keep murder at bay.

Our favorite national pastime is indeed “hedging against mortality”, as she says.  Who can argue with that.

Looking for ways to beat death.

Let’s count the ways….

1. Health clubs and gyms.

2. Diet programs.

3. Eating balanced meals, good food, organic food.

4. Avoiding sweets.  Well, okay, in moderation.

5. Watching our weight.  (Yikes. Change the subject, quick!)

6. Cutting out tobacco and alcohol. (Okay, we’re good here.)

7. Driving carefully and prayerfully. (Always.)

8. Drinking lots and lots of water. Too much, maybe.

9. Cosmetic surgery of a hundred types.  Not me, but lots of people we all know.

10. Makeup, hair color, and girdles.  (No comment.)

11. Regular doctor visits and annual exams. (Check.)

12. Good health insurance. (You bet.)

13. Locks on our doors and seat belts in the cars. (I lock the car even if I’m coming back in 2 minutes. Seat belts for everyone even if we’re just going down the block.)

14. Self-improvement courses–on meditation, deep-breathing, relaxing, whatever.

15. Vacations to rest the soul and the mind.

16. Xanax, ambien, and your favorite medication. (If needed, I’d take it. Thankfully, not needed.)

17. Vitamins and minerals. (For twenty years now, I’ve been on a daily regimen.)

18. A thousand kind of nutritional supplements, everything from acacia juice to pomegranate squeezings to the saliva from horned toads. (I just made up that last one!)

19.My wife says, “Eating overripe bananas because they fight cancer.” (A reference to our conversation yesterday morning.)

20. Refusing to read scary articles that speak of these things.

21. Staying off motorcycles. (I see the attraction to riding them, friends. But they are death-traps. Stay off them.)

22. Observing traffic signals, taking every precaution imaginary to drive carefully. (I read a booklet on defensive driving in the 1960s that has saved me from numerous accidents.)

23. Getting religious. Most religions of the world have as their main product assurances of a life after this one.  (And yes, I am religious.)

24. Going to church and bringing one’s life into harmony with the Creator Himself.

Well, that’s just a start. You’ll think of a hundred more.

Do any of these work?

Sure. In some ways, and for a time.  Many a soldier has returned from wartime assignments to say something like this: “My buddies would say there is a bullet out there with your name on it, and there’s nothing you can do about it. But I took the opposite view, that I could cut down on the likelihood of getting shot. And here I am.”

But, again in the words of Ann Patchett, “(Death) is absolutely coming.”

“It is appointed unto man once to die and after that the judgement.”  (Hebrews 9:27)

You can forget the pipedream about reincarnation, friend. Not going to happen.

Someone asked the preacher, “When are you going to quit preaching about dying?” He answered, “Just as soon as people quit dying.”

From that depressing scenario then, we turn toward the light.

Ah, the light.  Thank God for the Light!

“I am the light of the world; he who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (John 8:12).

“Because I live, you too shall live” (John 14:19).

“Christ abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Timothy 1:10).

In saying such things as Paul was wont to do–“we shall be at home!” (2 Corinthians 5) and “So shall we ever be with the Lord!” (I Thessalonians 4:17)–we are not denying death but affirming Christ.

We are not staving off anything but affirming all that is ours in Jesus Christ.

It’s coming, but death is merely the doorway by which we leave this earthly existence and enter the heavenly. And we must never say such a thing without remembering the One who said, “I am the Door. By me if you enter in, you shall be saved” (John 10:9).

At a local funeral home, I sometimes point out during a memorial service the doors just “off stage” and to the right of the minister.  Both doors carry signs saying “Not an exit.”  I suppose these are storage areas or something.

In this world, you will find many doors promising safe exits from this world and an entrance into God’s eternal kingdom.  However, we must not be misled.  Not all doors are exits and only One is The Entrance leading to Heaven.

Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).

Dear blessed Job had no idea all God had in store for him. Suffering in ways you and I can only imagine, he didn’t know much, if anything, about the gospel of Jesus Christ. But through his pain and loneliness, seeing with eyes of pure faith he sure got this right:

“But as for me, I know that my Redeemer liveth! And at the last He shall take His stand upon the earth! Even after my skin is destroyed, yet from my flesh, I shall see God; Whom I myself shall behold, and not another” (Job 19:25-27).

To followers of Jesus Christ, I would say: Do not obsess with your own coming death. Look beyond it to the glory awaiting on the other side.  “This momentary light affliction is working for you an exceeding weight of glory, far beyond all comprehension, while we look not at the things which are seen, but those that are unseen” (2 Corinthians 4:17-18).