Why Do Most People Fear Death?
When you mention that someone has died recently, comments usually turn to those that represent sadness or even fear. Death is something that I believe every living creature tries to avoid, unless in cases of extreme mental anxiety or some other reason that takes over one’s mind, to the point where death looks to be the only escape from some horrible guilt or problem.
When I thought about the subject of death, I got thinking about how when I was a child, I used to love sitting on the grass near the edge of the sidewalk on a hot summer day. As I sat there I would enjoy taking a large magnifying glass, and by using the concentrated light from the sun, I would burn ants as they walked around.
The light from the sun concentrated to a small point, would get very hot, in fact I could easily start fire to dead grass or leaves, I do not know how hot it was, but to guess I would say several hundred degrees, but in my childish mind it was an all-powerful laser beam, capable of destroying anything I aimed it at.
I never stopped and thought about the ants having feelings about what I was doing to them. But I do remember they would run faster, trying to evade the beam of light as I aimed it closer to them. For all I know, the ants may have cried out to the other nearby ants to save them, and they quite possible screamed in terror, with voices too small for human ears to hear.
How many times have you picked up a fly swatter, then noticed that the fly that was bothering you the past 5 minutes, rapidly disappears. Try sneaking up on a bird, and see how quickly it flies away. I believe the fear of death is something that is a part of every physical living creatures mind, no matter how small or large they are.
What truly causes a fear of death in humans? I would say that for the majority of humans, it’s caused by two main thoughts that pop into their minds, a feeling of missing out on what life may offer us, and a fear of the unknown.
If you mention dying to one person, they may state such responses as:
1. I wouldn’t want to die, because I am too young.
2. I don’t want to die until I take a lot of trips and see the world.
3. I don’t want to die because I would miss my wife or my husband too much.
If you mention dying to another person, they may state such responses as:
1. I don’t want to die because I am afraid I may end up in Hell.
2. I don’t want to die because that will be the end.
If we carefully think about these responses to death, we will understand that a lot of people may have these same thoughts or ideas. If someone feels one of these ways about death, this person is very likely not a born again Christian, for if they were, they would realize that death is nothing to fear.
When I mention that death is nothing to fear to a true born again Christian, I do not mean that there will not be a lot of tears, sadness and in some cases a lot of physical pain, when someone is near death from a lingering illness, old age or dies suddenly.
When someone dies, it’s natural to grieve, as someone we have shared parts of life with, sometimes for many years, is now gone.
The difference between the true born again Christian and a non-Christian is enormous when it comes to death, as a non-Christian has no hope, peace or joy about it, when the total opposite is true for a Christian.
My parents both died several years ago, along with my aunts and all of my Uncles except one. I miss them all very much and will continue to do so as long as I am alive in my physical body. Besides the feelings of sadness I have about missing them, I have a 100 times more feelings of happiness, because my parents as well as most of my aunts and uncles were Christians, so I know that I will see them again, or at least, most of them, and then we will be together forever.
A Christian as well as the non-Christian knows that our life on earth in these physical bodies of flesh and blood is very short and can be extinguished in a few seconds due to an accident or some other cause.
If we live for 12 years or 99 years, that is nothing, for when we are released from these physical shells, our human bodies, our true being, our spirits will live forever, for the true born again Christian this means being in the presence of God forever in Heaven, and for those that have not believed and accepted Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior, it means an eternity in Hell.
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