Here’s a real party-starter: everyone worries about death. While fear and anxiety are certainly not struggles exclusive to one people group, I’m here to tell you the clock ticks a little louder after you’ve been given a potentially life-ending medical diagnosis.

Case and point, I still wrestle with this question year after year of clean scans: how many tomorrows do I have left? Will it come back in my lungs? Will I get to see my children marry? Will I get to enjoy retirement with Sarah? Will I get to hold a grandchild?

That life-sucking, energy-depleting, hope-drowning trail of thought has led me down more mental and emotional black holes than I want to admit. Case and point, look at this “family age chart” exercise I went through recently trying to calculate exactly how much time I had left in various stages of my life. While the exercise is innocent enough, and can be extremely helpful in being strategic as a family, put it in the hands of someone who worries about being around in five years and queue breathing heavily into a brown paper bag.

But you know what I’ve learned after bringing my fears and anxiety about death to Jesus over and over again?

Living another tomorrow is merely a shadow of being fully alive forever with Jesus.

Being drafted by a professional team must feel incredible, but I bet it’s nothing compared to winning the championship. Holding hands with your date on a Ferris wheel is exciting, but it doesn’t hold a candle to exchanging vows with your spouse at the altar. Living another day might be preferable to death, but it does not “compare to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ” (Philippians 3:8). I promise you, it just doesn’t compare.

Here are a few bible verses and applications that have helped encourage me in this area. When it comes to the precious gift of life, I am learning to subscribe to Corrie Ten Boom’s philosophy to “hold all things loosely, so God will not have to pry them out of my hands.”

Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of His godly ones.

Psalms 116:15 (NASB)

In the end, how or when I die is up to God. Knowing that when I do, my perfect Heavenly Father will embrace me as His precious child has a very real way of instilling hope for today.

The thief [Satan] comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I [Jesus]came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

John 10:10 (NASB)

This word “abundantly” in the original language means that my relationship to Jesus bestows a quantity and quality “exceeding measure or rank and more than is necessary”. No matter what God has allowed to affect (or take) my life, He has exceeded my wildest dreams of what is possible. Forgiveness, promise of eternal life, hope, joy, family, purpose… the list is abundant. Looking at my relationship with Jesus now through the lens of gratefulness brings an excitement about eternity with Him that far exceeds my expectancy of another tomorrow.

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

Romans 8:18 (NASB)

In the painful moments, this is “easy preaching, hard living” but it is true, nonetheless. If God says that my-our-your suffering doesn’t compare the “magnificence, excellence, preeminence, dignity, grace, and majesty” of His glory and presence, I’m going to chose the unimaginable glory behind door number two. (And truth be told, you could exchange “blessings” for “sufferings” here and it would still be true.)

The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

Psalm 34:18 (NASB)

I have often noticed that most of my fear in dying is centered around those left behind. How will my children handle losing their daddy? How will my wife ever get over losing the funniest and most handsome man she’s ever met? When the sand has run out and He calls me home, God will be present and minister comfort to those I love. He will restore their joy. He will help them find peace knowing I am “absent from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8).

You don’t have to be stuck in the grip of worry and fear of the “what if”. You don’t have to merely survive another tomorrow, you can live fully alive and forever in a relationship with Jesus!