My first paragraph (immediately below) is actually the last paragraph. I moved it up to make it the part that gets read. Maybe there’s a similar opportunity for someone else here too?

One final note - what’s really struck me as I’ve listened to Ben Sasse’s “dying” interviews and podcast is that were I in his shoes, my response and perspective would be different. Not as winsome, not as “of good cheer,” and not particularly close. It’s humbling to say that - I am a pastor, after all. But I know it’s true. So what an incredible kindness and grace from the Lord it has been to consider what a dying man sees and have the chance to freshly repent and believe. To freshly think about what “building my life on the rock, not sand” looks like in this season of my life. One day, I’m going to die, and you will too. God willing, it’ll be a long time from now, but it’s coming. In the providence of God, there’s a date set for each of us and though I don’t know mine, I know the Lord does. Until that day or until Christ returns, there is joy and confidence in the Lord to be displayed, a great commission to join, kingdom living to be done, rightly ordered priorities to be lived. There’s faith, hope, and love to share with those I love the most. I’m thankful for the opportunity God has given me to watch Ben live over the past few months. I commend it to you, as well!

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If you pay attention to national news, you might have seen that former Senator Ben Sasse is dying of pancreatic cancer. He shared his diagnosis publicly, along with his deep hope in Christ, just before Christmas. The version of that post that ran in the Wall Street Journal was titled, “I Have Stage 4 Pancreatic Cancer, and I Am Going to Die” which certainly packs a punch!

Since then, he’s done a handful of long-form video interviews in mainstream “secular” venues where a Christian’s living hope is rarely proclaimed. Places like The New York Times, 60 Minutes and others, and he’s also sat down with Focus On The Family and a few other ministries he’s connected to. He started a podcast, Not Dead Yet, interviewing people he’s interested in about what it looks like to live a good life filled with meaning, love and joy. The interviews are weighty and wise, the podcast is fun and wise, and I’ve been watching and listening to both. I wish everyone could. Here’s a guy who has chosen to die publicly, speaking with “redeemed wisdom” and unflinching trust in Christ in the face of death, cracking jokes and having fun all the while. He’s providing a great example to all of us without such a diagnosis.

If you’re interested at all, watch these two clips:

- The last two minutes of his 60 Minutes interview where he’s asked, “How are you reckoning with the reality of leaving your family behind?” and “God, you believe, has a plan (even in this circumstance?).”

- The last ten minutes of his New York Times interview where he’s asked this series of questions:

• How are you thinking about your relationships with your kids and family life, in the shadow of death?
• How do you think your kids are processing this? (He has a 14, 22, and 24-year-old.)
• Given that impending death reorders your priorities, do you have any advice for fathers?
• Are you angry at God, ever?
• (Consider someone) who doesn't believe in God and finds your cosmic optimism admirable but maybe thinks that you're deluding yourself on the brink of death. What would you say to that person?
• Do you feel ready to die?

The words of the dying just carry more weight, for me anyhow. Cancer will steal a lot of time from Ben Sasse and his family, but listening to him speak, I don’t hear someone clinging to his resume or bitterly grieving the loss of years. I hear a man deeply rooted in Jesus, bearing witness to God’s steadfast faithfulness, placing His trust and hope in Christ alone, and redeeming the time he’s been given. Though his days are filled with treatment, pain, and morphine, the joy of the Lord is clearly His strength.

I’ve been inspired by it. In a sense, we all live on borrowed time. But life is a gift, today is a gift. Sasse’s Jesus-filled perspective is not reserved for the dying. It is available to each of us, today. By God’s grace, the living hope that is anchoring him in his final days is available to you and me in our ordinary ones.

So today, why not live in light of eternity, consider the brevity of our days, and walk forward in serious hope and joy in Jesus? For me, that’s the plan and I’m thankful to God for it, and secondarily, I’m thankful to Ben.