The seven most important questions...

I was going to die and there was nothing I could do about it. The only unanswered question was "When?" But I wasn’t the only one. Every human being had the same terminal prognosis. As far as I knew, the mortality rate among the world’s population was 100%. Death was a huge and unwanted elephant in the room that we were all supposed to quietly accept as a fact of life. No one was to question why death existed and or even ask how we could avoid it. It was bizarre.

I decided that I would at least visit my doctor to see what I could do to prolong my precious life. He was sitting behind a desk, gaunt, smoking a cigarette. He died a few years later. I wondered if science could help me. But it seemed that they were too busy trying to place a man onto the moon to worry about trifles like death.

So I was left with the inevitable. I was terminal and there was not a thing I could do about it.

Every year (in the United States alone) 562,340 people die of cancer (that’s 1500 every day)[1], 40,000 annually die through car accidents, and 100,000 are helped out of here through hospital-related infections[2] (dirty hospitals). If dirty hospitals don’t get you, incompetence may take you out--"between 40,000 and 100,000 people die every year because of doctors' mistakes, including surgical mishaps and drug mix-ups."[3] Starvation, murder, heart disease, hundreds of other diseases, suicides, earthquakes, drowning, etc., wipe out around 150,000 world-wide each day. That’s an astounding four and a half million human beings dying each month; human beings just like you and me, with the same fears and concerns. Despite these horrific odds of survival, most of us think that we will make it through this day and eventually die of old age, one day. So it’s not a pressing issue.

But perhaps you are reading this because your situation has the elephant weighing heavy on your mind. It is a pressing issue, so let me give you some relief, and then we will deal with the details. Way back on April 25th, 1972 at 1:30 in the morning, I found my answer. To my unspeakable relief I found out why we die, and what we can do about it. I can’t express to you how wonderful it is that (as a Christian) I know that I have everlasting life. Death has lost its sting. I am no longer terminal.

So now, you have to decide if I’m deluded, or if I’m speaking the truth. Let me present my case over the next week, and then you decide if it makes sense. We are going to look at what I believe are the seven most important questions you can ask.

To be continued.

NOTES:
[1] CBS News 1.28.2010--source: American Cancer Society.
[2] http://www.mccaffreyhealth.com/news/1-22.html
[3] http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19292601