The immortality of the soul is something of such vital importance to us,
affecting us so deeply, that one must have lost all feeling not to care
about knowing the facts of the matter" Blaise Pascal
My tension was rising as I powered my Piper Pawnee airplane down the short runway. I had been crop dusting all summer at my small-town airport but somehow this takeoff seemed different. The plane was fully loaded, sluggish, and had already passed the "point of no return" (where the airplane was moving too fast to safely stop even if I throttled back and applied brakes). The plane didn't seem to want to lift off, and the end of the runway was rapidly approaching. Immediately beyond was a county road with ditches on both sides and a barbed wire fence and tall corn field just beyond that. I knew the airplane wouldn't fare too well if I couldn't lift off by the time I got there, but worse, I knew I wouldn't fare too well either. By the time I got to the end of the runway the plane was still on the ground.That was not how I had planned for that day to go.
How do you and I plan our days? We go to work or school, stop by the store, catch up on the news or watch our favorite TV shows. We may think ahead to the next holiday, vacation, or perhaps even on occasion about our legacy and what the impact of our lives will be on the world...most of us want to make a positive difference somehow.
But as I was racing down the runway towards an uncertain end that day I wasn't thinking about any of those, not even my legacy. The heck with legacy, all I could think about was that I didn't want to die...I wanted to live! It was a moment that forced me to think about life and death. And if my death was imminent, I really would have preferred to know more about what might lie beyond.
Blaise Pascal, the famous 17th century scientist, said in his book Pensees: "The immortality of the soul is something of such vital importance to us, affecting us so deeply, that one must have lost all feeling not to care about knowing the facts of the matter". Pascal went on to say that because of the inevitability of death, which threatens us all at every moment or at best in a few short years, it ought to be our ultimate objective to seek truth in eternal matters such as whether we will face annihilation or, if there is life after death, whether we will face eternal blessing or wretchedness. "The fact that there exist such men," he wrote, "who are indifferent to the loss of their being and the peril of an eternity of wretchedness is against nature. With everything else they are quite different; they fear the most trifling things, foresee and feel them, and the same man who spends so many days and nights in fury and despair at losing some office or at some imaginary affront to his honor is the very one who knows that he is going to lose everything through death but feels neither anxiety nor emotion. It is a monstrous thing to see one and the same heart at once so sensitive to minor things and so strangely insensitive to the greatest. It is an incomprehensible spell, a supernatural torpor that points to an omnipotent power as its cause". The fact that some can cheerfully say "let us rejoice and live without fear or anxiety and wait for death, since it is all uncertain and then we shall see what will happen to us" defies logic. Pascal argued that if anyone lives with that kind of doubt without a desire to seek truth, it should be with a sense of gloom rather than joy.
Where does our strong desire to live come from? Some say it comes from evolutionary pressure for the survival of the species. Sorry, that rings hollow to me when I think about my own death. I believe it runs a lot deeper. The scriptures tell us "[God] has planted eternity in the human heart" (Ecclesiastes 3:11). C.S. Lewis said "If I have a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the explanation is I was made for another world" (I wrote about this in an earlier post, "Longings"). Most of us have a desire to live and to never die. Is it possible that the reason for this is that we were never meant to die?
Pascal observed that: "Being unable to cure death, wretchedness and ignorance, men have decided, in order to be happy, not to think about such things". So we fill our lives with distractions, busyness, noise, or anything that will keep our minds away from these realities. Jesus predicted that "As in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man" (Matthew 24:38-39). Speaking of Jesus, if you read the New Testament you will soon realize the powerful implications of His Resurrection from the dead, which includes gaining eternal life with him if you believe. The promise is that our lives are not going to end when we physically die but live on with him and one day be physically resurrected ourselves (1, 2)! Paul recommends that we adopt a mindset of eternity: "Set your minds on things above, and not on earthly things" (Colossians 3:2).
My mind was definitely on things above that day when I reached the end of the runway (like getting my plane in the air)! In a last ditch effort to prevent a crash, I yanked back on the stick (I'm sure I was praying too). Fortunately the plane lumbered off the ground, cleared the road and fence, and as I leveled off over the corn field, it slowly picked up speed until I knew it was going to continue to fly. Phew!
James, the brother and apostle of Jesus Christ, said: "Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes" (James 4:13-14). The message of the Gospel is one of hope and not of despair. But one thing is clear...we have to wake up (3)! I recommend not waiting until death is staring you in the face.
Let me close by asking: What do you have planned for today?
1) John 14:1-3; 2) 1 Corinthians 15:16-20; 3) Ephesians 5:14.
 |
| Me in the cockpit of a Piper Pawnee C, which I flew during the summer of 1980 to apply pesticides to crops and pastures near Scotia, Nebraska where I grew up. |
How do you and I plan our days? We go to work or school, stop by the store, catch up on the news or watch our favorite TV shows. We may think ahead to the next holiday, vacation, or perhaps even on occasion about our legacy and what the impact of our lives will be on the world...most of us want to make a positive difference somehow.
But as I was racing down the runway towards an uncertain end that day I wasn't thinking about any of those, not even my legacy. The heck with legacy, all I could think about was that I didn't want to die...I wanted to live! It was a moment that forced me to think about life and death. And if my death was imminent, I really would have preferred to know more about what might lie beyond.
Blaise Pascal, the famous 17th century scientist, said in his book Pensees: "The immortality of the soul is something of such vital importance to us, affecting us so deeply, that one must have lost all feeling not to care about knowing the facts of the matter". Pascal went on to say that because of the inevitability of death, which threatens us all at every moment or at best in a few short years, it ought to be our ultimate objective to seek truth in eternal matters such as whether we will face annihilation or, if there is life after death, whether we will face eternal blessing or wretchedness. "The fact that there exist such men," he wrote, "who are indifferent to the loss of their being and the peril of an eternity of wretchedness is against nature. With everything else they are quite different; they fear the most trifling things, foresee and feel them, and the same man who spends so many days and nights in fury and despair at losing some office or at some imaginary affront to his honor is the very one who knows that he is going to lose everything through death but feels neither anxiety nor emotion. It is a monstrous thing to see one and the same heart at once so sensitive to minor things and so strangely insensitive to the greatest. It is an incomprehensible spell, a supernatural torpor that points to an omnipotent power as its cause". The fact that some can cheerfully say "let us rejoice and live without fear or anxiety and wait for death, since it is all uncertain and then we shall see what will happen to us" defies logic. Pascal argued that if anyone lives with that kind of doubt without a desire to seek truth, it should be with a sense of gloom rather than joy.
 |
| A view off the wingtip of my Piper Pawnee Ag Plane. |
Where does our strong desire to live come from? Some say it comes from evolutionary pressure for the survival of the species. Sorry, that rings hollow to me when I think about my own death. I believe it runs a lot deeper. The scriptures tell us "[God] has planted eternity in the human heart" (Ecclesiastes 3:11). C.S. Lewis said "If I have a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the explanation is I was made for another world" (I wrote about this in an earlier post, "Longings"). Most of us have a desire to live and to never die. Is it possible that the reason for this is that we were never meant to die?
Pascal observed that: "Being unable to cure death, wretchedness and ignorance, men have decided, in order to be happy, not to think about such things". So we fill our lives with distractions, busyness, noise, or anything that will keep our minds away from these realities. Jesus predicted that "As in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark; and they knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man" (Matthew 24:38-39). Speaking of Jesus, if you read the New Testament you will soon realize the powerful implications of His Resurrection from the dead, which includes gaining eternal life with him if you believe. The promise is that our lives are not going to end when we physically die but live on with him and one day be physically resurrected ourselves (1, 2)! Paul recommends that we adopt a mindset of eternity: "Set your minds on things above, and not on earthly things" (Colossians 3:2).
My mind was definitely on things above that day when I reached the end of the runway (like getting my plane in the air)! In a last ditch effort to prevent a crash, I yanked back on the stick (I'm sure I was praying too). Fortunately the plane lumbered off the ground, cleared the road and fence, and as I leveled off over the corn field, it slowly picked up speed until I knew it was going to continue to fly. Phew!
James, the brother and apostle of Jesus Christ, said: "Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes" (James 4:13-14). The message of the Gospel is one of hope and not of despair. But one thing is clear...we have to wake up (3)! I recommend not waiting until death is staring you in the face.
Let me close by asking: What do you have planned for today?
1) John 14:1-3; 2) 1 Corinthians 15:16-20; 3) Ephesians 5:14.
