Forever
Most couples embracing one another at the altar don’t get the importance of also embracing the sure and coming reality of for- ever. The young mother looking at her newborn doesn’t think that forever is hardwired inside her child. So someone has entered the house of Western culture and stolen a precious family heirloom, but most of us don’t know a robbery has taken place. We go on living as if nothing has happened, but it has, and in powerful and practical ways it affects us all. We get up in the morning and do the kinds of things people have done for generations. We buy and sell, plant and harvest. We relate, commit, laugh, love, and fight. We get married and we make families. We work hard, create things, and reengineer our surroundings. Some of us build cities, and others of us thank God for the suburbs. We think, we analyze, and we critique. We try to learn from our mistakes, and we attempt to educate and prepare the next generation. We spend lots of our time eating and sleep- ing. We hate to be lonely, and we do our best to avoid pain. We search for meaning and purpose, and all of us long for an inner sense of well-being. We have eternity amnesia, and consequently our lives are much more difficult than they need to be. Here is a quick overview of the consequences of eternity amne- sia on our lives. 1. Living with unrealistic expectations. Why are our expecta- tions less than realistic? Because in our eternity amnesia we are asking this present world to be what it simply never will be. We want the here and now to behave as if it is our final destination, when actually all that we are experiencing in the here and now prepares us for the destination that is to come. 2. Focusing too much on self. Human beings were created to live big-picture, long-view lives. We were made to live with something bigger in view than this present moment’s comfort, pleasure, and happiness. Eternity confronts us with the fact that we are not in charge, that
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