For he says, “In the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you.” I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation. 2 Corinthians 6:2
On his sickbed prior to his death, the British preacher, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, said, “If you do not wish to be full of regrets when you are forced to lie still, work while you can. If you desire to make a sickbed as soft as it can be, don’t stuff it with mournful reflections that you wasted time when you were in health and strength.” I suppose it’s only natural when you get to the place Spurgeon described that you have regrets. You can no longer climb that mountain or swim the lagoon. Neither can you jump stairs two at a time or run and leap across a meadow.
That’s not what Spurgeon had in mind though. What he was talking about was coming to the sunset of your life. Then looking back, realizing you took the wrong road and wasted a lot of your years.
To ensure that you’ll have no regrets, put into operation the following four guidelines, which can make a tremendous amount of difference.
Guideline #1: Do it now. Don’t wait until you retire to start that hobby, or the trip, or get busy remodeling the house, or… (are you ready for this?) get into the shoebox in the closet and sort out those letters you wrote to your old girlfriend before you were married—you know, the ones you would just as soon that your children didn’t read after you’re gone. I’m also suggesting that you make peace with your enemies now and get rid of the bitterness, which made enemies out of friends.
Guideline #2: Plan it now. OK, there are some things that you can’t do now, things that take preparation and planning—that fishing trip with your boys, the anniversary weekend you kept promising your wife, the retirement program that you have been intending to set up. Good intentions are not enough. A dream is a goal with a timeline attached.
By the way, put to rest that notion that there’s plenty of time later on. You can’t broker your future. As she lay dying, Queen Victoria, the British monarch, is said to have cried out, “My kingdom, my kingdom for an inch of time.” I’m amazed at the number of people who have no written wills outlining what they want done with their assets which, by default, often go to the government or fall into the hands of those who little appreciate them or will not use them as the donor would have really wanted.
Guideline #3: Say it now. The teacher who so influenced your life. You’ve always been intending to find her and tell her how much you appreciated what she did. You’ve also been intending to tell your dad how much you love him, something that just doesn’t come easy because of a broken home. Don’t wait. Say it now.
Guideline #4: Live it now. Make your peace with God now, not when you are on a deathbed. “Deathbed conversions are seldom real,” said Matthew Henry long ago, adding, “and true conversions are seldom made on the deathbed.” Writing to the Corinthians, Paul penned these strong words: “I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.”
There are times when hard-working, thoughtful people—the kind who have been very successful in business, education, and industry, the kind who got to the top by skillful planning, hard work, and ingenuity—ignore God until they are felled by a stroke or a massive heart attack and they are so doped up by medication, they find it hard to think straight.
Don’t wait until you’re faced with the final exam to start cramming for the last test. Find out what the Bible says about making peace with God. Do it now: good advice to make your sick bed softer.
Resource reading: Isaiah 38:1-21
