Day 4- Made To Last Forever
This life is not all there is…
So Chapter 4 begins. The idea of our life being a “dress rehearsal” before the “big show” seems a bit foreign to most of us. After all we don’t really think much about dying do we? The idea that we have a short time here on earth, compared to eternity, and that we are really designed to spend all of eternity with God is pretty mind blowing to say the least. Not to mention the fact that how we think about this actually shapes how we act…
This chapter points out that God has planted eternity in the human heart and we have an inborn instinct that longs for immortality. The fact that God has wired our brains this way is the reason that we feel that we should live forever.
Our earthly bodies are just temporary dwelling places for our eternal spirits which were created to spend eternity with God. As we begin to grasp this amazing and wonderful truth, a few things begin to happen.
We are transformed in our thinking. Our cosmology changes. (look that word up..) Our priorities change. We begin to view every circumstance in the light of eternity.
As it’s pointed out in the reading today, if our life here on earth is all there is, we could just “live it up” and indulge in whatever we want to without the worry of any consequences for our actions. Isn’t there a huge problem today with inconsequential and short-term thinking? If you are actually thinking about how what you are doing is effecting eternity then don’t you think that you might do things differently? Your values change, your ethics change.
It is a poignant statement: “Only a fool would go through life unprepared for what we all know will eventually happen.” How do we prepare you may ask? Live as if each day is our last.