If Your Days Were Numbered, Would You Live Your Life Differently?.

[kaur_khalistani_lioness]

If your days were numbered, would you live your life differently?.

News Source: http://www.kansascity.com

Kerry and Chris Shook, authors of One Month to Live, challenge readers to live the next 30 days as if they were their last in order to experience life to the full.

You have one month to live.

Surely you’d want to get the most out of your remaining days.

You’d want to live passionately, purposefully, the way we were created to live.

That is the premise of a new book called One Month to Live by Kerry and Chris Shook (WaterBrook Press, $19.99).

“By embracing the fact that our time on earth is limited, we can live deliberately, no longer postponing the joy and peace that come from fulfilling our God-given destiny,” say the authors, a husband and wife who founded Fellowship of the Woodlands Church near Houston.

Wanting to explore the topic further, we asked people of various faiths: “If you knew you had only one month to live, how would you live your life? Would you live your life differently than you are now?”

The answers proved similar to conclusions reached by the Shooks.

“Usually people with a strong faith don’t have as much fear of death,” Kerry Shook said in an interview with the couple. “They have a lot of peace, a clarity of purpose in living their lives.”

Yet the authors found that most people are not becoming what God wants them to be.

“Most people just go through the motions of life,” Kerry said. “We want to help people not just to exist but to come alive.”

The authors also acknowledged that some people are at the place God wants them to be.

One reason the couple wrote the book, subtitled Thirty Days to a No-Regrets Life, is that “we want to get to that place where if we heard that we had one month to live, we wouldn’t have much to change,” Kerry said

Toward that end the authors ask readers to sign a “One Month to Live Challenge” in which they “commit with God’s strength to live the next 30 days as if they are my last so I can experience life to the full.”

So far, members from about 500 churches across the country have taken up the challenge.

Many Kansas City area people of faith told us there’s not much they would change. Many said they were intentional in trying to live according to the dictates of their religion.

“As a Sikh, I am admonished to live every day as though it were my last,” said Karta Purkh Khalsa of Kansas City. “If we live righteously, then we must live that way whether we have 30 years, 30 days or 30 seconds to live.”

The idea of a “bucket list,” similar to that of the characters in the recent movie “The Bucket List,” is tempting, Khalsa said.

His list would include visiting holy places and people in India and, if money and time allowed, in Europe and the Middle East “that have helped to guide me on this particular path.”

Melissa Higgins of Independence, a Baha’i, said she hadn’t feared death until she had children — and even then it wasn’t a fear of death so much as a fear of leaving them motherless.

“I imagine I would be bolder about sharing my faith,” she said. “I imagine at the grocery store checkout, telling the cashiers I’ve been acquainted with for years and years, ‘I’ve got 26 days left before I go to meet my Maker. I want to tell you about the Baha’i faith. It’ll change your life. Here’s a little book and my number.’ Why not?”

Another Baha’i, Barb McAtee of Overland Park, said she would praise God for her life, thank God for the life to come, and pray for guidance to finish the work she was put here to accomplish.

By HELEN T GRAY

was on http://www.sikhnet.com/sikhnet/news.nsf/Ne...72573ED007E090E

Would YOu? what would u change about ur life?

[Wicked Warrior]

I think the majority of people have thought about death at some point in their life but most either ignore it or shrug it off. I know my days are numbered but I'm living as though that number is huge. Otherwise, I would have lived my life differently. I would not become a doctor to help others.

Hell, if someone said I had only a month to live, I'd quit work, take Amrit, sit in Guru's charan and do as much simran as I could until I died. Forget friends. Forget family. Forget work. Forget everyone else. Forget food. None of it would matter.

[kaur_khalistani_lioness]

is that what Guru sahib instructs us to do?^^^ to give up everything just because u are going to die?

[OhTwadi]

Have fear, it'll transform you into love. Problem is, its extremely hard to fear.

[JustME]

count each day as a blessing, do each nitnem as if it ur last, love everyone, see waheguru in all and treat this world as u would if u were a guest as someones house.........

Thats what we are, guests, we come, we go, others come other go..........

[Amrit Kaur Khalsa]

Our days are numbered - we just don't know what that number is, so we keep putting everything off. We see one month as such a short time - and a lifetime such a long time, when in reality it isn't - we shouldn't have to live differently if we only have a month to live - coz who knows - we might. Here's me being a hypocrite - I would definitely live differently.

is that what Guru sahib instructs us to do?^^^ to give up everything just because u are going to die?

That's the point - we shouldn't have to give it up, coz that same amount of simran done in one month should be much less than the simran that could have been done throughout your life.

[AK-47]

I dont think many of us would act all that differently.

We suffer from keeping too much hope. We would hope that somehow it was a mistake, we would hope that somehow a solution or cure would appear, we would hope something, anything!!

Accepting death is one of the hardest things to do, if you had 30 days, you'd prob waste most of them in denial and just not being able to accept the inevitable. Its what we do know, maharajh tells us to always remember death as it is coming. Yet we ignore it, push it to the side and just dont seem to accept it.

And ultimately whats the difference in 30 days or 300 days? If we as sikhs dont listen to guru sahib who is telling us that death is less then the blink of an eye away, do you really think we'd care much if a doctor or someone said that we only had 30 days left? Or maybe we would listen to the doctor and change our ways. But if so .., do we have more faith in the doctor then guru sahib?

[kaur_khalistani_lioness]

love the different views of ours=)

count each day as a blessing, do each nitnem as if it ur last, love everyone, see waheguru in all and treat this world as u would if u were a guest as someones house.........

reminders me of Katha done by Sant Isher singh ji (Rare walay) on this...stating exactly this point and explaining life as a journey. ah life started to make much more sense from that point and day!

Here's me being a hypocrite - I would definitely live differently.

what would u change that u feel u cant at the moment?

[kaur_khalistani_lioness]

I dont think many of us would act all that differently.

from a sikhi point of view....i think there are few who are awakened to change the life course

We would hope that somehow it was a mistake, we would hope that somehow a solution or cure would appear, we would hope something, anything!!

it would be interesting to know why do some "hope" or wanna to live long?

Accepting death is one of the hardest things to do, if you had 30 days, you'd prob waste most of them in denial and just not being able to accept the inevitable. Its what we do know, maharajh tells us to always remember death as it is coming. Yet we ignore it, push it to the side and just dont seem to accept it.

hanji there is some truth to that.

And ultimately whats the difference in 30 days or 300 days? If we as sikhs dont listen to guru sahib who is telling us that death is less then the blink of an eye away, do you really think we'd care much if a doctor or someone said that we only had 30 days left? Or maybe we would listen to the doctor and change our ways. But if so .., do we have more faith in the doctor then guru sahib?

dont u think it has lot to do with each individuals understanding and how they think? abstract vs concrete?

[Wicked Warrior]

Our days are numbered - we just don't know what that number is, so we keep putting everything off. We see one month as such a short time - and a lifetime such a long time, when in reality it isn't - we shouldn't have to live differently if we only have a month to live - coz who knows - we might. Here's me being a hypocrite - I would definitely live differently.

is that what Guru sahib instructs us to do?^^^ to give up everything just because u are going to die?

That's the point - we shouldn't have to give it up, coz that same amount of simran done in one month should be much less than the simran that could have been done throughout your life.

The ability of the mind to concentrate can change drastically depending on the situation in hand. If you know the amount of time you have to live is short, it is easier to concentrate on meditation because you have that drive, that fear of death, to push you and make you concentrate.

There's a sakhi knocking around here somewhere of someone who wanted to know how to meditate. The guy went to his guru and asked him. The guru told the man to carry a lit candle through a nearby city and then come back again, making sure it never extinguishes. He does as so and comes back (think the flame extinguished, can't remember). The guru asks him what he saw and the guy replies that he saw many things, markets and shops, people, many women, lots of food, heard great music and singing etc. The guru then tells him to carry the candle but to be careful not to flame extinguish or he will die. To ensure this, the guru gets a big strong man to carry a sword and follow the man, right behind him, with the explicit instructions to kill the guy if the candle goes out. The guy then walks through the city and comes back, this time when the guru asks him what he saw, the guy says nothing, only the candle, because he was scared of being killed.

This is the way we should all meditate, with the knowledge that death is around the corner. When we know this threat is there, when we can feel it, it is much easier to do simran. It's a lot easier to let your mind wander if you can't feel the impulse.

I know myself that when I'm lying in bed, sometimes it comes to me that I may not live to see the morning. I become fearful of death and this allows me to start simran, then I fall asleep whilst simran and when I wake up, I've forgotten all about the previous night's episode.

It isn't an ideal way to live, but it's better than not remembering death at all.