The Fragility of Life
June 29, 2009 by Standing on Truth
Filed under Culture
People pass away every day, but unless we lose someone that we know personally, our own death may not be something that we think about frequently. And yet when in the course of one week, we lose 4 public figures–Michael Jackson, Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, and Billie Mays–we are faced with a very real and haunting (for some) thought:
Life is fragile.
We work hard to achieve success, acquire wealth, fill the aching voids in our heart, and to look good in society. But often times, we give very little thought to what is beyond this life. We get caught up in preparing a comfortable life for ourselves here and now and forget about the comfort of our afterlife. And then one day when it hits us that life is fragile and fleeting, we find that all we have chased after here on earth will not save us when it comes to eternity.
In Ecclesiastes 2: 10-11, the author (who some believe is King Solomon) says, “I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my work, and this was the reward for all my labor. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done, and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.”
Blogger Tim Challies says this about Michael Jackson:
“More than any other celebrity he embodied the “vanities” of Ecclesiastes. He was at one time known for what he did so well and then was known for being a freak; he was at one time fantastically wealthy and then utterly broke; he was once loved and then despised. He had it all and yet, it seemed, he had nothing. All of it was meaningless, a chasing after the wind. . .But I hope now that he has finally found peace. Sadly, though, his life showed no evidence that he had found the One who is peace, the one who offers true peace. And if that is the case, the true horror of it all is that Jackson will spend all of eternity in the same twisted mind that tortured him for most of the fifty years he was given here. Those fifty years seemed to drive him to the brink of utter insanity; the thought of an eternity in that state is too horrific to imagine. We may like to think that death inevitably brings peace to a tortured existence. But Scripture gives us no reason to find hope except in the One who offers hope.”
This makes me terribly sad. Likewise, I watched Farrah Fawcett’s documentary about a month ago and although she spoke of God, she never spoke of a personally relationship with Jesus Christ nor of a peace she had knowing that she would spend eternity in heaven with her Father. I can only hope at this point that any of these 4 talented individuals that passed away this week found peace with the Lord before they died. Yet again, I’m reminded of how fragile life is. Here today, gone tomorrow.
Are we ready?
While our culture has no problem discussing death on a daily basis–news tickers, sensationalized stories, crime reports, health watches, and funeral arrangement announcements–there seemsto be a shortage of news stories on what happens after death, especially from a biblical worldview. We have become so “politically correct” that talking about God as the only way to heaven has become increadibly taboo. . .in fact, it’s seen as discriminatory.
Yet the facts remain.
In John chapter 14, Thomas asked Jesus, “‘Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?’ Jesus answered, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me’” (verses 5-6).
Some do not believe in an afterlife. Some do not believe in God. Many do not believe that there is only one door to heaven. Many believe that you can get through that door by good works, rather than by simple grace (Ephesians 2:8-9). But as Pete Briscoe points out in his book, Belief Matters, “In the end it doesn’t really matter how much you believe. What matters is what you believe.” He goes on to say that regardless of our sincerity about what we believe, if what we believe is false, where does that get us?
“If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9).
If you would like to take that step of faith, click here.
