In View of Eternity

After much unhappiness upon hearing the bad news about my Dad’s contract job termination, I struggled through my bible study for today. It really was a struggle because my mind was bursting out questions & grudges to God. And possibly, a few of them directed against God… Yet even with my current family situation, God still revealed some truths, as I mentally struggled through the bible study.

Fulfillment by ‘Doing’

I learnt that we are a ‘doing’ people generation. We seek to find fulfillment by what we do. We begin to feel useless when we don’t seem to be doing anything that makes us feel fulfilled. This is undoubtedly very true in our generation.

The author challenged us with this question – “If you knew that all you had was a relationship with God, would you be totally & completely satisfied?”

This question really stumped me, coz I never thought about it this directly before. Personally, I guess it’s very difficult to comprehend being 100% satisfied coz God made us as humans with needs, which He provides. And human beings are independent of God, themselves or even the world that surrounds us. That’s the confusing part coz we do see such similar verses appearing many times in the Bible. From my understanding, perhaps these verses are to direct us towards focusing & relying on God, rather than being overly attached & obsessed by the things of the world.

Created not for Time, but for Eternity

It suddenly dawned upon me that so very often we perceive our lives’ journey as a means & daily attempt to live to the fullest before we die. Be it living to the fullest in the secular context, for non-believers; or attempting to combine both human preferential activities & Christ-like behavioral mindset, & live to the fullest possible.

The author rebuked us for having such a misunderstood mindset. He explained that by thinking so, we would have missed the ultimate purpose of creation, i.e. the reason why God even decided to create us in the first place.

Firstly, God created us, so that He could love us & that we would choose to love Him back. Secondly, when God created us, that was our beginning… & it is a mistake to think that our end means we die & go to Heaven. That is the wrong mindset, coz there is no end to a Christian’s life… but rather a future for a Christian!

Note the difference – we Christians are to think of our lives as a ‘future’, not an ‘end’ itself! Coz that’s exactly what Jesus Christ died to give us when we accepted Him into our lives… so that we will live in eternity in Heaven with Him!

Thus we are tasked during our time on Earth, to go through experiences that will develop our character into similarity with Jesus Christ. If not, how will be we able to appreciate & live in the fullness of the dimensions in Heaven? Furthermore, the experiences & the growing process that we go through on Earth will determine how we would be useful when we get to Heaven.

I suppose in a way, this kind of relates to the crises & tough situations that we are faced with in my life… so that over time; we would learn & develop the mind similar to that of our Lord Jesus Christ. And with that, we will be able to experience the fullness of what God has to offer us when we get to Heaven!

Of course, it is easy to say when one is not going through the ordeal, but even though we may need & take time to regain our composure, it doesn’t make truth any less truthful…