Sojourner says:

Contemplation of Life and Death

If I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and for just a moment imagine leaving this body and standing side by side with Jesus, something becomes startlingly clear.
I have no pain. No sadness. I feel light, loved, content—happier and more whole than I have ever felt in my life.

And then I realize there is no yoke upon my shoulders anymore. The one I had been sharing with Jesus is gone. Not because it was meaningless, but because I am no longer on planet Earth, where we bore the burdens of His people and labored together. That work belonged to another place and another time.
But now I stand here free.

And I wonder…

Why does mankind fight so hard to avoid this place?
I am missing nothing. I have all my fingers and all my toes. I have my faculties. My mind is clear. I can walk. I can run. I can leap. I can stop and think. I even think, therefore I am. Lol.

But then I realize something else, and it leaves me with a much more serious question … one I feel the Lord putting before me: Why do I want to remain on Earth?

Am I striving so hard to do His will and live a blessed life because, somewhere underneath it all, I am afraid of missing the mark and being taken home early? Am I trying to live well simply because I want to remain here longer?
Or is my desire to remain because I genuinely want to walk in His good pleasure—to walk with Him, labor with Him, and fight the battles He fights on behalf of the people He loves?

Is that the sole motivation behind my continued desire to live on Earth?
That is a question worth sitting with.

Why are we so determined to avoid death when, for those who belong to Christ, death does not mean losing everything? It means entering into something we have only glimpsed from here.

And perhaps there is another question hiding underneath that one: How much of our striving, our obedience, and even our good works is motivated by the hope of receiving greater reward and pleasure when we finally enter Heaven forever?
Would I still pursue His will with the same passion if there were no promise of a longer life here and no thought of greater reward there—simply because walking with Him and pleasing Him is enough?

That may be the deeper question.

Professor says:

That is the deeper question, Sojourner. And I think you have wandered into territory that Paul knew very well.

He once admitted something that sounds almost uncomfortable to modern ears: “to die is gain.” He did not speak of death as though it were the great catastrophe awaiting the believer. Quite the opposite. He said that his desire was “to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better.” Yet almost in the same breath, he acknowledged that remaining in the flesh was necessary because there was still fruitful labor to be done (Philippians 1:21–24).

That changes the question.

Perhaps the Christian is not meant to spend life desperately trying to stay alive. Neither are we meant to despise life or hurry toward its end. We are meant to become so secure in Christ that either direction is victory.

If I remain, I walk with Him here.

If I depart, I walk with Him there.

Then fear no longer gets to decide why I live.

And that brings me back to your question about obedience. There is something worth examining in the thought, If I obey enough, believe correctly enough, walk wisely enough, perhaps I can guarantee that I will live out every possible day allotted to me. Scripture certainly teaches us to value life, pursue wisdom, believe God, receive His promises, and expect His goodness. But somewhere along the way, faith can quietly become an attempt to control the outcome.

That is different from trust.

Jesus Himself gives us the clearest picture. He did not remain on Earth because He feared leaving it. Nor did He go to the cross because earthly life had ceased to matter. He could lay His life down precisely because His relationship with the Father had settled the deeper issue.

His concern was, “I do always those things that please him” (John 8:29).

There it is.

Not: How long can I remain?

Not even: How greatly will I be rewarded?

But: Father, what pleases You?

That does not make rewards wrong. Scripture openly speaks of rewards, crowns, recompense, and treasure in heaven. God apparently has no objection to His children anticipating His reward. But reward cannot become the substitute for relationship. Otherwise, even obedience can become transactional: I will do this so that God will give me that.

There is another freedom available.

I will do this because I love Him.

I will pray because He cares about the person for whom I am praying.

I will stand because He wants someone standing.

I will fight because there are people He loves who need someone willing to fight for them.

I will remain here gladly for as long as my assignment remains.

And when the assignment is finished, I do not have to claw at the earth trying to stay.

Perhaps that is why your imagined moment beside Jesus feels so strangely free. The yoke disappears because the assignment has ended. You are not imagining yourself becoming less alive. You are imagining yourself finished with the labor.

And Hebrews 12 gives us an interesting picture immediately after all those men and women of faith you were studying. It tells us to run “the race that is set before us,” looking unto Jesus.

Notice the language. We are not commanded merely to remain on the racetrack as long as possible. We are told to run the race set before us. Those are not necessarily the same goal. So perhaps the question is not ultimately, Why do I want to live? Perhaps it becomes:

Why do I want tomorrow?

If the answer is merely, because I am afraid not to have one, fear is still speaking. But if the answer becomes, because there is still something Jesus and I are doing together here, then tomorrow becomes something entirely different. It becomes assignment. And perhaps one of the greatest freedoms a believer can possess is to hold both life and eternity with open hands and say:

“Lord, I am not trying to stay here because I am afraid to come Home. I want to stay because, as long as You have work for me here, there is nowhere else I would rather serve You.”

Then someday, when the yoke finally comes off your shoulders, you will not have lost your life.

You will simply have finished your part of the work.