The Standard May 9, 2026
At age 54 Ben Sasse seems to be doing interviews left and right, reflecting on mortality, faith, and the greatest needs of our country. Representing Nebraska in the U.S. Senate from 2015 to 2023, Sasse found that the time away from his wife and three children was not worth the trade-off of being a member of one of the most powerful deliberative bodies in the world. In his mind, most in Congress were more interested in grandstanding and clinging to power than in tackling the meatiest issues facing our people. He resigned and became the president of the University of Florida.
This past December, Sasse was diagnosed with Stage 4 metastatic pancreatic cancer and was told he had three to four months to live. The cancer had spread to his lungs and liver. Treatment in an aggressive, clinical trial at MD Anderson in Houston has shrunk his tumor volume by 76%. His pain has been greatly reduced and the new drugs are buying him more time.
So, what does this level-headed leader, from a committed Christian family in a Nebraskan town of fewer than 1,300 people, with degrees from Harvard, St. John’s College in Annapolis, and Yale, have to say to us? Sasse is talking about redeeming the time. This is a Puritan concept of intentional focus on faithful service and gratitude to God as opposed to fleeting, earthly pursuits. Sasse believes it means to hold ambition lightly, love family deliberately, and resist making a flashy career or politics the center of life. It is most important to serve God and neighbor, build community, and avoid making temporal things our idols. Acknowledgement of our limited time on earth requires a reordering of priorities, with an intentional shift away from digital distraction, political furor, and over-work. Developing deep relationships with God, family, and friends is vastly more important.
“Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.” Ephesians 5:15-17
Sasse recently did an interview on “60 Minutes” and is adding to his Not Dead Yet podcast. I encourage listening to one of his many interviews or reading from his 2017 recommended reading list, which includes, in part, the first eleven chapters of Genesis, the Gospel of Matthew as the “grittiest gospel,” the Epistle to the Romans as a systematic theology of the Bible, Martin Luther’s Commentary on Galatians, Aristotle’s Ethics, Augustine’s Confessions, Anselm of Canterbury’s Why God Became Man, Martin Luther’s In Bondage with the Will, John Calvin’s The Institutes of Christian Religion, and Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica. It does a heart good to hear or read the exposition of some basic, everyday practices and priorities which fulfill our God-given purpose.
celiastone 