More Than Medicine
More Than Medicine
DWDP : Life is Brief and Uncertain
Can you imagine the profound impact a single moment can have on your life? On this heartfelt episode of More Than Medicine, I, Dr. Robert Jackson, share the deeply personal and tragic stories that have shaped my understanding of life's fleeting nature. From the heart-wrenching loss of a dear friend in a motorcycle accident to the unforgettable memory of an 18-year-old boy whose life was abruptly taken in a motor vehicle accident, these experiences underscore how delicate and uncertain our time on Earth truly is.
Join me as we reflect on the wisdom found in the Bible, particularly from Psalm 90 and the Book of Job, which encourages us to cherish each day and seek a heart of wisdom amidst life's unpredictability. Through these poignant stories from my medical career and personal life, we explore the balance of life and the eternal truths that can guide us through our transient journey. This episode serves as a sobering reminder of the preciousness of our time here, urging us to live purposefully and with wisdom each day.
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Welcome to More Than Medicine, where Jesus is more than enough for the ills that plague our culture and our country. Hosted by author and physician, Dr Robert Jackson.
Speaker 2:Papa, can you tell me a story? Do you really want me to tell you a story? Well, you go, get your brother and your sisters and I will tell you a story. Well, you go, get your brother and your sisters and I will tell you a story. Welcome to Devotions with Dr Papa. Gather around, open your Bibles and let's look into the written Word, which reveals to us the living Word which is our Lord Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2:I'm continuing in a series of lessons about biblical insights gained from encounters with my patients. Today I want to talk to you about. Life is brief and uncertain. Some years ago I had a patient who became a friend of mine because we were both motorcycle riders. In fact, he had a motorcycle that was identical to mine. We both rode a Honda Magna 700cc V-twin, except his was royal purple and mine was midnight blue, and we both thoroughly enjoyed those motorcycles. Now he was a big man. He was over 350 pounds and about six foot three, and when he sat on that big Honda 700, he made that bike look like it was a scooter. But the bike was a powerful bike and it hauled him around like it was not a problem at all. We enjoyed riding on scenic Highway 11 in northern South Carolina and we had a good time enjoying those bikes, especially in the fall of the year when it was cool fall of the year when it was cool until one Monday morning his wife called me in hysterics to tell me that a careless driver had pulled in front of him and he had run broadside into their vehicle and it had killed him instantaneously.
Speaker 2:And I began to understand very clearly that life is brief and uncertain. The psalmist tells us in Psalm chapter 90, as for the days of our life, they are certain. They contain 70 years or, if due to strength, 80 years. Yet their pride is but labor and sorrow, for soon it is gone and we fly away. Who understands the power of your anger and your fury according to the fear that is due you? So? Teach us to number our days that we may present to you a heart of wisdom. Did you catch that last verse? Teach us to number our days so that we may present to you a heart of wisdom. And you see, it wasn't just the death of my friend, my motorcycle-riding friend.
Speaker 2:As a family doctor, I've had numerous patients that I've encountered in the emergency room or in my medical practice that have lost their lives suddenly and often at an early age. That has caused me, as a family doctor, to understand the brevity and uncertainty of life. In Job, chapter 8 and verse 9, bildad was speaking to Job when he said we are only of yesterday and know nothing because our days on earth are as a shadow. And you know that's so true. Our days on this earth are only a shadow. In 1 Chronicles, chapter 29, king David described his time on this planet as a pilgrim and a sojourner, and he said that we are just tenants, as were all our fathers before us. A tenant is a renter. He described his life as someone who was just renting.
Speaker 2:When I was in my years of residency, I worked at the emergency room in Gaffney, south Carolina, and one Saturday night, when working in the emergency room, an 18-year-old boy came in who had been involved in a motor vehicle accident and, despite everything that we did for him, that young man expired. He died there in the emergency room, and the image and the emotion of it is still imprinted on my heart and on my memory more than 45 years later, and I still remember telling the parents and the grandparents that your son has died. I remember the weeping, I remember the wailing. I remember the shrieking, I remember the shouting, I remember the emotional content in the little chapel there adjacent to the emergency room. Now, why were they so distressed? You see, because the Bible tells us in Ecclesiastes that God has set eternity in our hearts. They were distressed because our hearts are bothered by brevity.
Speaker 2:The abbreviated lifespan reminds us of our mortality, that our lives are fragile and delicate as butterflies' wings, as frail as dust. It reminds us that we are like the ephemera, the mayfly that lives for only 24 hours. And we marvel at the mayfly. And how must the angels in heaven marvel at mortal men who last but a day on the calendar of eternity? And yet we men boast of our strength, we boast of our longevity. Deep in the inner recesses of our minds, the ultimate reality that life is, at best, ever so brief and fragile as butterfly wings. We Americans boast of being created equal. Well, perhaps, insofar as our civil rights are concerned, we are created equal, but not in terms of time. We are not dealt equal shares of time because some lives are abbreviated, like this young 18-year-old boy in the Gaffney emergency room and like my motorcycle-riding friend whose life was cut short on a Sunday afternoon.
Speaker 2:You and I postpone dealing with ultimate realities, one of which is the brevity of life. Instead, we cultivate feelings of invincibility and we repress thoughts of our mortality. We don't live today as if we may die tomorrow. For example, what would you do differently if you knew that your life would be over in three days? Well, if you knew, then I would challenge you to do all of the things that you need to do in the next three days. How do I know? How do I know that we suppress the thoughts of our vulnerability? I'll tell you how.
Speaker 2:Most of my patients die of depression without a will. I talk to their families and they are so frustrated that their husband or their wife or their granddaddy died without a will, and they're forced to go through the probate in the courts. So many of my patients die without any funeral plans or without even ever having bought a cemetery plot. How often do we contemplate that our drive to work today may be our very last, as the woman of Tekoa told King David, for we shall surely die and are like water spilled out on the ground which cannot be gathered up again. She was right. That was a wise woman. The next thing I would say to you is. This is that life is uncertain. In 1 Samuel 20, verse 3, david was speaking to his friend Jonathan. He said, truly, as the Lord lives and as your soul lives, there is hardly a step between me and death.
Speaker 2:One of my best friends from high school was a college baseball player. He was just as fast as Quicksilver and he was an excellent ball player. Name was Bruce and he was an excellent ball player. His name was Bruce, and one day Bruce brushed his shoulder against the gates of hell. He worked for Duke Power and he accidentally brushed his right shoulder, his throwing arm, against a high-power electrical line that supposedly had no electricity in it but unfortunately it did and it burned his right arm off entirely at the shoulder and it threw him 20 feet down to the ground and when he hit the ground he was dead. But his co-workers were able to resuscitate him and they carried him to the burn center at Duke University and they were able to take off his right arm at the shoulder. The electricity had exited from his left thumb. They were able to transplant his right thumb onto his left hand and he survived. After many weeks in the hospital and while lying there he had a come to Jesus meeting and he committed his life to the Lord. He knew that I had prayed for him for years and I was honored that I was the first person he called after he had committed his life to Jesus.
Speaker 2:How many times have guardian angels spared our lives in the way that they spared the life of my good friend, bruce? You see, your life and my life are tenuous as a spider's web. They can be snuffed out as quickly as a candle by an errant breeze that leaves only a smoking wick where once there was warmth and light. You and I have no promise of tomorrow. Indeed, the Bible cautions us repeatedly of the uncertainty of the future.
Speaker 2:In James, chapter 4, the Bible talks about this very thing. When the Bible tells you and me God, speaking through James, in chapter 4, in verse 14, he says plainly Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say if the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that. But as it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it to him. It is sin. You see, we boast about the things that we will do tomorrow when we really don't even know that we have the opportunity to live tomorrow. That's why the Bible tells us repeatedly and admonishes us that today is the day of salvation. We cannot postpone until tomorrow that which we know we should do today, and if you have never committed your life to Christ, then today is the day of salvation. Don't wait until tomorrow, because tomorrow is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2:Part of the fear of death is the anxiety of uncertainty. The greatest uncertainty in death is when Christian folks know what to expect beyond the grave, and with the eyes of faith they see with certitude the welcoming arms of our Heavenly Father. But even Christian folk don't know when that uncertainty remains. For you see, brothers and sisters, life is brief and life is uncertain, and I have learned that truth repeatedly from my patients, many of whom have gone to the grave too soon.
Speaker 2:Verse 2. I'm confident that you, my listeners, have known friends and family who have gone to the grave before they expected to, because you see that our life is like water poured out on the ground that cannot be gathered up again. Our life is like a shadow, it is like yesterday, and this is a reality that all of us must come to grips with that life is brief and life is uncertain. And it's a challenge for you and me to talk to our friends and our neighbors about their eternal, never-dying soul and to persuade them, first that life is brief and life is uncertain and that there are eternal realities that we must all come to grips with and that today is the day of salvation and that there are issues in life that we must deal with that cannot be put off until tomorrow, because tomorrow is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2:My friend who ran his motorcycle into the side of that woman's car had no idea that that was his last day. That 18-year-old youth in the Gaffney ER had no idea that that day was his last day. None of us know that today is a day that we may breathe our very last. We're not guaranteed tomorrow. None of us know that we'll be here in five years or ten years. We all make plans for the future, but none of us make a plan to be dead tomorrow. The challenge is to make things right between us and God. That's why the Scripture says teach us to number our ways that we may present to thee a heart of wisdom. You're listening to Devotions with Dr Papa. If you like what you hear, I pray that you would follow, like or share or even download it. I'll be back again next week and until then I pray that the Lord will bless you real good.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to this edition of More Than Medicine. For more information about the Jackson Family Ministry, dr Jackson's books, or to schedule a speaking engagement, go to their Facebook page, instagram or their webpage at jacksonfamilyministrycom. This podcast is produced by Bob Sloan Audio Production at bobsloancom.
