It’s a normal day. I look around and I find myself…living. In this body. On this planet. I’ve learned many facts about my existence here, first in my home then in a place called school. I know my planet orbits a sun. There are continents and oceans. Fish and fur. I am one of many types of life on this planet. But why am I here, what am I to do?
Both inside and outside of school I’ve learned there are things in this world that make me happy and things that make me sad. As I grew, I questioned what I was to do with my time and how it could affect the portions of happiness and sadness I received. I could continue to learn new things, experience new experiences, acquire more things, but in all these pursuits I continued to fall short of a state of sustained joy.
I looked around me and I saw others making their choices – what they did, how they spent their time. How they spent what was their time compressed into tradable tokens, aka money. I saw them experiencing good times and bad. I saw ease and I saw hardship. Perhaps it is my objective to simply escape hardship for as long as possible. Perhaps I am to actively help others ease their hardships. Perhaps I should seek to right the wrongs that create these hardships.
I look around and see others living 50, 70, or a hundred years. They all share the same personal fate; death. And for the vast majority, irrespective of their decisions, die in insignificance and anonymity.
How then am I to behave? Shall I ready myself to be content with some years of earthly existence then embrace at the end of this time either a dreamless sleep or as some believe, a reincarnation? Or am I to find some way to prolong my existence, perhaps indefinitely?
I know I can live my life and then live on through my children and their children. Some of my traits will even continue for a while until the blending of bloods changes eye color and alters my cheek bone structure from their little faces.
I can share my acquired wisdom with them and that may live on for a few generations. Perhaps I should simply be content that my achievements act as a sort of foundation, helping my descendants start from a place with cleaner water, safer schools, and warmer homes.
However, I will be no more. Even their most powerful memories of me will fade as the remembering and retelling of my stories is drowned out by newly acquired individual experiences of the progeny.
Knowing I can’t be the first to have these thoughts, I search the accumulated wisdom of those who have come before me. I learn there are plenty of sources and many differing opinions. I seek reassurance from others and I find stories of paths to be taken for a longer life, a happier life, a more rewarding life, a regenerative life, and even stories of a path to an everlasting life.
I find groups come together to share in their common beliefs to take shelter against non-believers. Many groups band together and echo thoughts off one another, free from disagreement or unsettling information. As an outsider I ask those groups how I am to achieve their purported ends and I find instructions ranging from what to eat, what to read, how to move, where to live, and what to do. I learn that choices must be made, some involve postponing near-term joys for the promise of future joys. However, nearly all of these paths still end with my death. But I find death is infrequently discussed or even addressed in most schools of thought.
Many ideas and teachings on the purpose and path for life conflict with one another. I conclude some of these ideas must be false, so therefore, some must be true. A few concepts of existence would have me returning to this planet after my death, albeit in a different body, sometimes even as a different species. A few concepts have me leave this body and after a brief to longer period of waiting, sometimes involving ethereal penance, have me receive a new body. In one unique concept I’d receive an ever-lasting, decay-proof body.
Intrigued by this last notion, I ask how can I get into that line and I’m told differing theories involving effort, karma, surrender, and one minority idea where only the one who created me can allow me admission – I must be pre-selected by the original creator.
There is no amount of effort I can expend. No amount of good deeds. No amount of postponed gratification that can earn me this end. But this world does not work that way. How can I entice, coerce, or even force the creator to choose me? I’m told I can’t. According to mounds of ancient literature, the creator already decided who, of all those he created, he will allow to live forever and who of those he will permit to follow their own path, traveling alone without him, which ends in their eternal death.
Initially this system sounds harsh and even capricious, but looking at the alternatives, it is still the most alluring of all the concepts. Can I at least know if I have been chosen? If I am “among the elect” as is said?
No, I’m told, but I’m advised to think, even if just for a moment, that I am. Will I live differently than I did before starting down this path of discovery? If I believe I am among those chosen, does it change my outlook, my behavior, my reactions to life’s positive and negative stimuli, or my overall attitude in living?
Well, yes. To know I’m destined without risk of failure for more than what I see here, I feel jubilant. First, I’d want others to know that I’ve contemplated this line of thinking and this is the conclusion I have reached. I’d want them to break free of inherited thinking, youthful biases, and even widespread cultural norms. I’d let them know the good news that it’s not what they do, for I know some don’t have even the ability nor opportunity to do good. I’d let them know it’s not a secret for which they have to be in a special select group to be able to learn. I’d let them know that even when they fail it’s OK, since this isn’t the basis for them being chosen anyway. Despite these failures I’d live always endeavoring to be the kind of person who is worthy to be chosen. I’d strive to live gratefully, generously, modestly, being always helpful and selfless.
My new found zeal to understand comes with a desire to dive in and learn. I turn to historical materials I’m told were directly inspired by the creator. I learn the only thing I have to do is to “believe.” (Acts 16:31)
But even that simply statement deflates my initial zeal as it seems to be couched in a shroud of linguistic mystery. What does it mean to believe? Are their examples which can help me know what specifically this means?
I learn of others who questioned if they possessed a ticket to an after-life. John tells (in 1 John) of a series of tests one can use to examine ourselves and our faith. One simple test: If our life were a tree, does it bear good fruit?
I learn about early believers Paul and Silas who tell their Philippian jailer to believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved. (Acts 16:31) How does this translate to me? How can I believe? What does it mean to believe? How do I know if I’m doing it right?
Taking advantage of the tools previous generations of believers have made available, I can examine the words in this phrase in the language in which they were written; Greek. Rather than a single definition for a word, the Greeks used context to fine tune word meaning. One powerful tool leading to deeper understanding is a concise dictionary published in 1890 by James Strong just four years before his death. He was not content with living a life simply escaping hardship. He left a lasting legacy. In this dictionary I read these definitions:
• “Believe” – Strong’s word 4100 – Verb; entrust, think to be true, place confidence in, build or place one’s faith upon
• “Lord” – Strong’s word 2962 – Person exercising absolute ownership rights. Possessor and disposer of a thing.
• “You will be saved” – Strong’s word 4982 – Deliver out of danger and into safety. Rescue from penalty and power of sin.
To believe is to place my confidence in the one who has absolute ownership rights to make me appear right before the creator. Said in the sometimes-insular sounding language of my adopted religion, it means accepting that only through Jesus’s righteousness, credited to pay my debt, am I redeemed before the Father. This is the only way I can live beyond this life, and have meaning during this life.
I learn about other ways those who have lived before me have summarized complex concepts of God and His design into bite-sized morsels. During my ongoing years of journeying, studying concepts like The Five Solas helps me to understand and articulate my beliefs and avoid being misled by false teachings. Just as the original image is more faithful than the reproduction, going back to the earliest stories, oldest literature, and evidence gathered by eye witnesses to events proves more accurate and trustworthy than second or hundredth hand tales.
I use this information to live my life helping, not hurting. Encouraging, not discouraging. Proclaiming the truth and exuding the joy which comes from holding a steadfast conviction. I live boldly believing I am, for reasons known only to God, among those He chose to redeem from a road which otherwise ends in futility and death.
I will never be proud nor boast that I was smart enough, or wise enough, or good enough, or connected to the right people, or descended from the right bloodline, to be among those chosen. I’d simply live my life like I believed in the Lord Jesus, and that even this ability to believe was a gift given to me by God. I was chosen by God.
I will demonstrate to the world that I believe. Not as a condition of agreeing to an offer to be saved, but out of a profound sense of appreciation for receiving a completely and utterly undeserved gift. I’ll confess with my lips, not some magical phrase but one admitting that the one responsible for granting me access to the creator has absolute authority over me, now and always.
To demonstrate, to live out my belief, I’ll move away from other beliefs. That this was up to me. I’d never slip into thinking I somehow deserved this gift, that I had been smart enough to conclude this was the right path. I will not judge others as inferior who do not yet exhibit the same understanding nor fruit.
I will engage in rituals designed to help me continue my learning, to help me to remember and teach me ways to better practice my commitment. And I’ll forever be on guard not to confuse participating in those rituals as the means to achieve the ends.
I will believe that there is an owner of my life and it is not me. I will believe that as the owner he has the right to do with my life as he sees fit.
I will believe that as the Lord he would be the source of knowing the best and proper way to live my life. I will turn to his direct word, his manual for living, to learn my part in his play. I will perform to the best of my abilities, abilities which I now also understand come from the maker, to demonstrate my respect, admiration, indebtedness, reverence, and awe.
And as to the many remaining questions I have, as I first did in school, I will continue to learn. I will continue I will consume all that I can, holding fast only to what is good. I’ll seek out the council of others pursuing a similar path, holding fast only to what is true to the original truth in all its proper context.
It’s now a different day. I look around and I find myself living, in a body, on a planet. I’ve learned many facts about my existence here, first in my home then school, then finally in a place called church. I know my life revolves around a Son. I can be content when I realize I am one of many types of life on this planet. But I now live with a purpose for today, fully and completely assured of my ultimate destination, reunion with the one who made me.