Welcome again to Things Unseen.

And if you're a new member of our podcast community, perhaps I should say that each week

we reflect on a particular topic that's important for our daily Christian lives.

And I probably should add that if you happen to have joined us this week, we're thinking

about something profoundly serious, but something the masters of the spiritual life have always

regarded as supremely important.

It's the subject of the four last things.

And today we're thinking about the first of them,

death. It's not a subject in which most of us want to linger, although your lawyer may remind

you that it's important to do that. And there are actually good reasons for not wanting to think

about it. And the chief one is that you don't want

it to happen because you love life and you love the people in your life. And life is such an

amazing gift from God. We didn't choose to have it. We didn't contribute to its beginning. Even

our parents didn't know who they were going to get. But we love being alive, and if we're Christians, we do actually love the world in which we live,

because it's God's creation.

And we also see people who go through enormous trials, privations, suffering,

and yet they still love life because they love the Lord and

they love being in the world He made.

I find that one of the most fascinating things about God's common grace, that people who seem

to me to be quite unpleasant individuals still are given the privilege of loving life.

We have a kind of inborn love for and concern about our world, and other people, family,

and friends mean so very much to us, and we don't want to lose that. We're made to love life, not to hate it. When we no

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