Today's question comes to us from a listener named Scott, Pastor John, based on recent medical

diagnoses and due to my life circumstances.

The likelihood that I will reach middle age are very slim.

I'm in my late 20s.

My brother died at age 18.

This prospect has caused me to go through battles of trusting God and fighting off depression.

I understand God is sovereign and I have no right to ask why he's made me this way.

I look forward to being made perfect, but until then, how can I live out the rest of my life

in a courageous manner that is honoring to him?

How do I prevent the prospect of a premature death from turning me jaded toward our sovereign,

Lord?

My response to Scott's question is a kind of quiet reverence.

Whenever I am in the presence of someone, and as a pastor, I've been in the presence of

many who has been told that their life may be cut short.

I feel as though I'm on sacred ground as if eternity had penetrated that moment and

that place.

So Scott, please know that I want to respond to your questions with a great sense of the

weightiness of the reality that you lost a brother at 18 and that your own life could

well be cut short, not even to reach midlife.

So I don't take it lightly.

However.

One of the first things I want to do is gently push back on your statement that you have

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