Eternity

I can still distinctly remember when I first realized that someday I was going to die.  I was maybe 7 or 8 years old and while I had an understanding of what death was, I had devised a plan in my mind of how I was going to avoid dying all together.  For some reason, probably from some Christmas time special I had watched on T.V., I had the idea in my head that elves living at the North Pole lived forever.  So naturally when I got older and closer to when most people die, I would just make my way up there and become an elf.  Unfortunately this plan of mine came to a crashing halt when I discovered the Christmas gifts from “Santa” in our basement weeks before Christmas.  Inevitably I was saddened to learn that Santa wasn’t real, but more earth shattering for me was the sudden realization that at some point my life would end.  Then what?  The only thing I could conceive was that my life would be snuffed out, total blackness, nothingness.  I’d be gone and I would cease to exist.  The thought of it gave me a dark pit in my stomach feeling that made me sick.  It completely overwhelmed me. 

Over the years when I would think about death those same thoughts would creep back into my mind, the same sick feeling.  I quickly brushed them away by trying to fill my mind and time with other things.  I imagine many other people have done/do the same thing.  I mean it’s the fate we all face.  It’s something we will all experience.  At some point in each of our lives we have run the sentence through our head “Someday I will die.”  Where we differ, is what we decide to believe about what happens next. 

We first must decide where we stand on the existence of a God.  We can determine for ourselves that He exists or that He does not.  Bear in mind, we can’t really make one or the other true, the best we can do is take a stance.  If we decide that there is no God, then we essentially must believe that when our life ends it’s final and our existence is like a flame being snuffed out.  I guess some people are cool with that.  I’m not totally sure how, but for me I just have a really hard time with that, and I always have. 

If we decided that God is real and that there is something more for us after we take our last breath, then we need to decide Who God is.  Which set of beliefs is true?  We can’t say that everything is true and all religions have their own way to God, each being valid.  We can’t say that because religions contradict one another.  We must decide for ourselves which truth we believe is true.  We can’t say nothing is absolutely true because in saying that we obliterate our own statement as well.  So if God is real, then there has to be a way of finding Him and knowing Him.  We must decide what way that is.  I think it’s fairly obvious at this point where I stand on this.  But my basis for believing that the way to God is through Christ is based on some pretty strong factual evidence.  If you’re at all interested into looking into it for yourself, try reading The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel or The Case for Faith by the same guy.   If you’re not much into reading he made two documentaries by the same names that are available on Netflix instant view. 

I can’t say that now as a believer in Christ I don’t have moments where I truly wonder what will happen to me after I die. Even though the bible tells me; I’m a doubter by nature and there is a teeny tiny part of me that wonders if everything I believe is true.  I believe with all my heart that God is okay with that.  My doubts are what keep me on a constant quest to seek Him out, to find the facts, to arm myself with example after example of how real He is.  I think it would be foolish for the little doubt in my head to cause me to throw all of my eggs from this basket into the one that says, “There is no God.”  After all, if they are right and I am wrong then it is what it is.  We will both just cease to exist. But if I’m right and they are wrong, then they will miss out greatly on an eternal life with God and I will not. 

I’ve been reading a book entitled Heaven by Randy Alcorn and I’ve been reading it because plain and simple, I have a ton of questions about what life will be like after I die.  Eternity.  That means forever.  I can’t even really wrap my mind about that.  Everything we know on this earth has a beginning and an ending.  Eternity is not something we can really conceptualize and I personally struggle with the idea of it.  Even if heaven is amazing, will it still be good if it goes on without end?  I believe the answer is yes.  Our pastor said something today that for some reason gave me a lot more peace about eternity in heaven.  He said, “We are in time and God is in eternity.”  I think the meaning of this is:  Time is all we understand.  Our entire framework for understanding everything is framed around time.  But God is in an eternal state.  He always was.  He always is.  He says, “I AM that I AM” Exodus 3:14.  Someday we will understand this.  For now we must deal with our stance on eternity.  Time passes.  Life passes quickly and then the part happens after we die.  Each of us has to deal with this reality and each of us must take a stance or leave it all up to chance.  I know where I stand.