Live To Live To Leave

John the Baptist's death came after the request of a child who danced before the king was granted. The child asked for the head of the Baptist after she was coached by her mother who was angry at John for crying out in the open the immorality she was committing with her husbands brother. Some would say that it was an untimely death. John could have done more. He could have been the instrument for the repentance of many.

Beautiful and attractive may have been the potentials of John, but the fact is, he had fulfilled his mission; to prepare the way of the Lord. Jesus had come and had been baptized by John signalling the end of the mission of the Baptist! He died a fulfilled prophet. This is not really new. Scanning the Scriptures would reveal that most if not all the prophets died young. They met their death fulfilling the mission God had given them, i.e. to bring the Word Of God to the people. Even the Lord Jesus died at the age of thirty-three. After three years of active ministry, He met His death on the cross.

This is so because God is concerned more on the quality of life. It is not the length of time that we have lived in this world that matters much than the way life was lived. You may have grown old but you still have not fulfilled your God-given mission. You maybe young and yet you had achieved much if not all of the things God expected you to achieve. A saying in sports says: "When the great scorer pens your name, he writes not whether you win or lose but how you played the game." So with God, when we face Him for judgment, it is not the length of time we had lived but whether we had lived life according to the His design.

A poem entitled, "The Dash" speaks of the dash sign between the year of birth and the year of death (e.g. 1901-1980). The year of birth or the year of death are not what matters in that script on one's epitaph. The dash is what matters. That dash represents the life the person who had died. If that dash had been spent according to God's will, that person had fulfilled his life regardless of his age.

So, the death of John should encourage us to look at our lives. What is God's purpose for us? What ought we fulfill? Let us not worried about how long or how short our life is. Let us be more concerned about what kind of life we have lived.