According to the Centers for Disease Control which monitors such things, life expectancy in the United States declined in 2017 following what is now a multi-year trend in the wrong direction. The cause? Drug overdoses and suicides. According to the report, the 2017 life expectancy for an American woman is just over 81 years, but for men the number is five year less or just over 76 years. 

The issues for us to consider are many: the breakdown of the family, the need for meaningful work, the decline of family farms, the abuse of opioids, the isolation and social dislocation of social media, the breakdown of social institutions – the issues are many. But there is another layer of conversation to have as well.

When we talk about life expectancy, are we really just talking about days and years or are we talking about quality and character and purpose? God alone knows the number of my days but I expect to live forever and I expect each day God gives me here upon the earth to be lived in the advance of His Kingdom purposes.

Life expectancy isn’t just a matter of the calendar, it’s a matter of living a life pregnant with the possibility of God’s redemptive power in every moment from here to eternity.