Live as Though Dying Daily

So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. PSALM 90:12

When Antony was about a hundred and five years old, Athanasius tells us, he went down one last time to visit the monks of the outer mountain, and told them that this would be his final visit. They wept and embraced him. But he spoke joyfully, “as though sailing from a foreign city to his own”, and he left them a few plain counsels. Among them was a phrase he had used for years, and which he repeated again on his deathbed: live as though dying daily. It gathers up much of his practical wisdom, and it is a good door into the ordinary, daily shape of the life he taught.

The shortness of life

Antony’s great address to the monks begins, not with demons, but with time. The whole life of man, he says, is very short compared with the ages to come. In the world everything is sold at its price, one equivalent for another; “but the promise of eternal life is bought for a trifle.” If we give up a few acres, or even the whole earth, it is nothing compared with the kingdom of heaven. And whatever we do not give up for God’s sake we shall leave behind when we die anyway, often to people we would not have chosen.

For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. 2 CORINTHIANS 4:17

This is why he urged the monks never to say, We have lived in the discipline a long time. Each day was to be a fresh beginning. A servant does not say, I worked yesterday, so I need not work today. Neither should a Christian live on past devotion.

I die daily

Then he explains the phrase. Paul said, I die daily (1 Corinthians 15:31). If we too live as though dying daily, Antony says, we shall not sin. When we rise in the morning, let us think that we may not live till evening; when we lie down, let us think that we may not rise. Life is uncertain, and Providence gives it to us one day at a time.

Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city … Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. JAMES 4:13–14

This is not morbid. Antony was, by every account, a cheerful man. Athanasius says that his face shone with joy because his soul was at peace. Living as though dying daily frees the heart. If this may be my last day, I will not waste it nursing a grudge, chasing a possession or indulging a secret sin. I will forgive, give thanks, and do the good that is in front of me.

The sun and your anger

One of Antony’s favourite counsels came from Ephesians. He urged the monks to meditate constantly on the apostle’s word.

Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath. EPHESIANS 4:26

He applied it not only to anger but to every sin. Let not the sun set on any sin of ours, he said. Each day, let every one take account of his actions by day and by night; if he has sinned, let him stop, and if he has not, let him not boast. He even gave a practical method: “Let us each one note and write down our actions and the impulses of our soul as though we were going to relate them to each other.” We would be ashamed to sin before our brethren, he reasoned; so if we write our thoughts as though they would be read, we shall be more careful of them.

Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. 2 CORINTHIANS 13:5

The practice is worth adopting, in some form, by any Christian. A few minutes at the end of each day, looking back honestly, confessing what was wrong and giving thanks for what was right, does more to keep a soul clean than many resolutions.

Prayer and the Psalms

Antony’s rule of prayer was simple. “Pray continually,” he told the monks; “sing psalms before sleep and on awaking.” Hold the commandments of Scripture in your heart. Remember the lives of the saints, so that your soul may be stirred to imitate them. Again and again in the Life we see him praying with the Psalms: against temptation, in the tombs, in the fort, on his long journeys. The Psalms were his armour and his food.

Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice. PSALM 55:17

The dignity of work

It would be easy to imagine that Antony did nothing but pray. Not so. From the beginning, Athanasius says, he worked with his hands, remembering that the idle should not eat, and gave part of his earnings to the poor. In the inner mountain he dug a plot of ground and grew his own grain, so as not to be a burden to the brethren who brought him bread, and he grew vegetables to refresh visitors after their hard journey. He wove baskets and gave them to those who brought him supplies. Athanasius notes, almost in passing, that “he was careful to work hard.”

And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you. 1 THESSALONIANS 4:11

Prayer and work belonged together. The desert was not an escape from labour but a place where labour and prayer were woven into one life.

A caution

In the same address Antony says that virtue is within us and easy if only we are willing; “virtue hath need at our hands of willingness alone.” Read by itself, this could suggest that holiness is simply a matter of trying harder. That would be a serious mistake, and it is not the whole of Antony’s teaching; the Life insists again and again that his victories were the Saviour’s work in him. We should take his counsel to be willing and diligent, and hold it always inside the greater truth that God works in us both to will and to do.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Tomorrow morning, before anything else, say to God: This may be my last day. Help me live it for You. Notice what changes.

2. Before you sleep each night this week, look back over the day, confess what was wrong, and let the sun not go down on it.

3. Try Antony’s method for a week: write down briefly the thoughts and actions you would not want others to read, and bring them to God.

4. Choose one psalm to pray on waking and one before sleep, every day this week.

5. Look at your work, paid or unpaid. How could you offer it to God as part of your prayer, and use it to serve others?

A PRAYER

Lord, my life is a vapour, and my days are in Your hand; teach me to number them.

Let me live today as though it were my last, forgiving quickly, giving thanks gladly, and letting no sin outlast the sun.

Teach me to pray at my rising and my lying down, and to work with my hands as an offering to You.

And when my last day comes, let me go joyfully, as one sailing home. Amen.