Hi and welcome to today's reading from the Our Daily Bread Devotional.

It was written by Po Fung Chia, and she titled it Living Well.

Free Funerals for the Living.

That's the service offered by an establishment in South Korea.

Since it opened in 2012, more than 25,000 people, from teenagers to retirees, have participated in mass

living funeral services, hoping to improve their lives by considering their deaths.

Officials say the simulated death ceremonies are meant to give the participants a truthful sense of their lives, inspire gratitude,

and aid in forgiveness and reconnection among family and friends. These words echo the wisdom given by the teacher who wrote Ecclesiastes.

Death is the destiny of everyone. The living should take this to heart.

Death reminds us of the brevity of life and that we only have a certain amount of time to live

and love well. It loosens our grip on some of

God's good gifts, such as money, relationships, and pleasure, and frees us to enjoy them in the here

and now as we store up treasures in heaven where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.

As we remember that death may come knocking any time, perhaps it'll compel us to not postpone

that visit with our parents, delay our decision to serve God in a particular way way or compromise our time with our children for work.

With God's help, we can learn to live wisely.

Today's Our Daily Bread Devotional Scripture reading is from Ecclesiastes chapter 7 verses 1 through 4.

A good name is better than fine perfume.

And the day of death better than the day of birth.

It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting. For death is the

destiny of everyone. The living should take this to heart. Frustration is better than laughter,

because a sad face is good for the heart. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning,

...