Living wills, or "advance directives" are an interesting thing. There are different reasons that a person may have one. Due to recent advances in medical science and technology, the human body can often be kept alive through artificial means. Take actor Christopher Reeve for example. Years earlier, the kind of injury he suffered would likely have resulted soon after in his death, but he was able to live meaningfully for about ten years, thanks in part to the medical advances made over the last few decades.

Some people give directives to keeps themselves from suffering the prolonged agonies of a debilitating disease.

Other people have living wills to keep their bodies alive in case for some reason they become "brain dead", wanting medical science to catch up to them so they can be resuscitated and restored to normal levels of functionality. This is their hope.

Don't get me wrong, I find living wills to be a possibly useful and even considerate (for those left behind) tool that can take the agonizing guesswork out of someone's passing. I don't see anything wrong with them, but I'm often puzzled at the lengths some people will go to prolong their physical lives without so much as a thought to prolonging their spiritual lives.

In 2nd Corinthians 2:14, the Bible tells us that, "the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." If a person truly has the Holy Spirit residing within them, they know that they have an eternal destination that brings joy.

Sure, some Christians might fear the "dying", because it's unknown by experience and can be painful, but they don't fear the "death" because death in the sense that they will not go on, is spiritually foreign to them. They have a knowing trust in Jesus to keep them in His eternal grace.

I say Christians have a "knowing" trust because for them, their future was revealed to them by the Holy Spirit in a way that removed their doubts when they met and accepted Jesus, the Anointed One, to be the Lord of their lives. That means that instead of leaving their allegiance to and empathy with this world, they stepped by faith into a new existence with Jesus, Who guarantees them a life that will never end.

If you can't understand what that means, I wholeheartedly suggest that you spend some sincere time in prayer, that is, talking to Jesus, and asking Him to change your heart. Ask Him to be able to know Him and ask Him to give you the peace that only He can provide. He is the only One Who can give anyone a future with hope.