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Live Life Backwards

Here's a strange sentence from Ecclesiastes: "It is better to go to a funeral than a feast" (Ecclesiastes 7:2). At first glance that sounds grim. But sit with it a minute. When you walk into a funeral, something honest happens in your chest. You suddenly care a lot less about the stuff you were anxious about on the drive over. You look at the person's life, and without even trying, you start measuring your own. Solomon calls that "sober reflection," and he says it's good for the heart. Here's the thing—we don't need to be morbid about this. We just need to be honest. One day there will be a service with your name on the program. What do you want people to say? Not the polished version. The real version. And then here's the harder question: are you living today in a way that would actually get you there? I don't ask that to pile on. I ask it because Solomon is handing us a gift. He's saying you can live life backwards. You can let the end shape the middle. You can stop waiting for some imagined future to finally become the person Jesus is inviting you to be, right now. So go ahead—live backwards. It's a better way forward.backwards