How Should We Then Live? —Episode 3 — Having Enough and Eternity —
Man, it’s a foggy day on the moon. I love it like this! I’m in my new Nordic NK Rapido; it’s 19 1/2 feet long 18 1/2 inches wide.
He’s sweet I know. He’s sweet I know. I have a Savior and He’s sweet, I know.
Dark clouds may rise and the strong winds may blow but I have a Savior and He’s sweet, I know.
Jesus is sweet, I know. Jesus is sweet, I know. I have a Savior and He’s sweet, I know. He’s sweet, I know. He’s sweet, I know. I have a Savior and He’s sweet, I know.
The dark clouds may rise and the fog and strong winds may blow. Thankfully not today! But I have a Savior and He’s sweet, I know.
He’s sweet, I know. He’s sweet, I know. I have a Savior and He’s sweet, I know.
Man, there’s no place I’m closer to God, other than when Madge and I have our morning devotionals and our evening discussions about Him, than out here on Moon Lake, by myself, talking to God, singing to Him. He doesn’t mind that I can’t carry a tune and I am totally tone deaf. To be out here, far as I know, I’m the only person on this 2300 acre lake today, out in the fog, it’s just me and God. I love it!
I can sure think a lot about eternity out here and that’s what we’re supposed to be thinking about. I mean, think about this marvelous body we are in. And that is the key is that we are in it. CS Lewis said that we are a soul with a body not a body with a soul. And GK Chesterton, as Madge informed me, (we love Chesterton) but she’s been reading “The Everlasting Man”… Chesterton referred to the human species as aliens and we really are aliens here. We are unlike anything else. And to think about how marvelous we are, all the synapses, corpuscles, where does thought come, from one egg and one sperm, get together to create something unique! That is a very specific but part of the universal. This world is full of absolutes.
Regardless of whether you are a Christian or not or what you believe spiritually or religiously about eternity, the fact that we are not here, then we are here, and we are marvelously created, whether you believe we are created in the image of God. I do! but still, you got to admit, the human body and the human mind, together, make up a rare entity. Think about that and then we are gone. When we die, they have the funeral, everybody comes, they celebrate us, then they are wondering what’s for lunch. They may remember us fondly. Two generations…I had a granddaddy…3-4 generations, and that’s it. But within weeks or days or as soon as we die, it doesn’t matter what we own, what we had, who we saw, who we didn’t see, where we lived, what we wrote, what we thought, how many places we visited, how many cars we owned…. All of those things are insignificant. So, whether you believe in eternity or not, it’s worth trying to figure out if it matters. And I believe, it does.
One of the things that’s been on my mind as I paddle into the Mystic, (wow it’s beautiful out here) it’s something I’ve been focusing on lately. Something I read in a book. I believe it was Kurt Vonnegut, the writer, was at a party with Joseph Heller who wrote “Catch 22.” Vonnegut tells Heller something to the effect, he says, you see that man over there? I guess he was a hedge fund manager or a stockbroker or fiduciary or banker… He said, Joe, he makes more money in one day than you will on all of your royalties from the book “Catch 22,” which is a classic. But Heller looked at Vonnegut, and he says, yeah, but he’ll never have something I have. Vonnegut looks at Joe and he says, what? And Heller said, “Enough.”
I’ll tell you right now, having my health, being able to paddle out here in the Mystic, talking to God, I’m blessed. I got hot water and a roof over my head, and I got Social Security, a few tours… and let me tell you something, I’ve been redeemed. There ain’t been a sorrier cat that ever lived than me. I’m clean and sober and I don’t say all this as a point of pride, but just as thankfulness.
I had a professor in Bible college that said something that was remarkable or at least stuck with me, he said, “The hallmark of a Christian ought to be thankfulness.” I’d say the same about humanity. But, it doesn’t mean there aren’t folks who’ve had a long hard walk. My job is not to look down on them. My calling is to love them and to help them in any temporal way or eternal way I can. And to just be thankful for where I am.
But, my mantra in life is, “If we don’t love God and our fellow man, both which I do poorly, but if we don’t love God and our fellow man, then hegemony is going to take over and whoever is in charge is going to crap on whoever isn’t.” We see it today and in my study of the Middle Ages, pre Middle Ages, pre civilization, Roman through Greek through Persian through Israel through Arab history through, particularly the Renaissance and the Reformation, the church, the state, society, the individual, the family, we get off track and don’t truly love God and our fellow man, and not do it in a way that increases hegemony because the love of money and power are two corrupting influences. But, it’s incumbent upon us to love God and our fellow man.
I think somebody might say well, where you get that? I get that out of the Bible. But people have used the Bible all of life too justify whatever their position is. In essence, I think that’s the difference between deism and theism. Deism believes that maybe there was a God that created this world and us but he just kind of left it spinning, if it is spinning, and, we’re just to walk our way through it without His help. Theism believes that he’s there to help us. The word of God is referred to in Greek as the Logos. Jesus Christ is considered the Logos. How about that for some duality.
There is a Greek word, rhema, which means, the word of God, but it’s made relevant. I do just believe that we have access to a very living God who wants fellowship with us, who created us in His image. We’ve done a pretty good mess of it; I know I have. I do believe that to be true. I’m thankful for Him and I’m thankful for where He has placed me in life because I shouldn’t be alive.
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