Sometimes we describe someone as currently dying, meaning, they’re received a terminal diagnosis and are suffering its effects. (I don’t object.)

However, in reality, we would do well to remember that we are all in the process of dying. The difference is merely how delayed that end results seems to be for each of us. But no one is never not dying, not heading inevitably towards that final fate. Each day, each hour, each minute, we get a little closer. A terminal illness, for instance, is merely hastening what was already inevitable.

The danger lies in deceiving ourselves that we are not dying, that we are immortal—at least currently so unless otherwise interrupted.

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Scriptures for reflection

Psalm 39:4–5 –

“O Lord, make me know my end 
and what is the measure of my days; 
let me know how fleeting I am! 
Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths, 
and my lifetime is as nothing before you. 
Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath!

Psalm 90:9–12 –

For all our days pass away under your wrath; 
we bring our years to an end like a sigh. 
The years of our life are seventy,
or even by reason of strength eighty; 
yet their span is but toil and trouble; 
they are soon gone, and we fly away.
Who considers the power of your anger, 
and your wrath according to the fear of you? 
So teach us to number our days 
that we may get a heart of wisdom.

Ecclesiastes 7:2–4

It is better to go to the house of mourning 
than to go to the house of feasting, 
for this is the end of all mankind, 
and the living will lay it to heart. 
Sorrow is better than laughter, 
for by sadness of face the heart is made glad. 
The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, 
but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. 

Luke 12:16–21 –

And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” ’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.” 

James 4:13–17

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”—yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.