Reflection and quote

Several well known and high profile people have died in the past two days: doctor, politician/journalist, baseball player/commentator, along with the usual numbers of people who are locally well known, accident or crime victims, and also people whose time has just arrived when it did. Some lived to really good long years, while others seem to have been cut short, in the sense that an illness prevented them from living the fullest span of years available to humans in general.

Many were fervently busy people in the rat race of secular life. They spent long hours at their jobs and/or routinely exposed themselves in the media, getting some sort of message out.

Yet every time I read of a passing, I automatically think: in the years they did have, and with all they have "done," had they spent any time at all making sure they are "alright with God?"

Once one has passed away in death, it's too late to both get to know God, and also conform what you do in your life to his standards of expectations toward your fellow human. Being a jolly good fellow and well liked is fine, of course, but that is not a substitute for making sure one is alright with God. So many people think that if you are the life of the party and a "good soul" as in generous pal, that you just default your way into heaven. That, sadly, is not the case, and there are plenty of people who were just "full of life" and "fun to be around" who are in hell. That may sound extreme, but it is only this past two generations who have seemed to lost their grip on that concept, that regardless how amiable you are, that does not cancel out or excuse you from your personal obligation to seek God. New Age crap has not helped, because there has crept into the modern psyche some sort of unspoken assumption that "karma" ensures some sort of eternal life and "recycling" of that jolly good fellow or gal's spirit. It does not, since there is no such thing as reincarnation or "past lives." And there is certainly no syrupy New Age goo of happy spirits floating around looking down on the green grass of home and their loved ones.

People, you have one shot at life and what you see is what you get. And if in all that you achieve and in all that you do you cannot find the time to make sure that you are alright with God, and not just make up your own standards and give yourself your own passing grade, then you are in a world of trouble and peril when you die and have to account to God for what you have done, and just as important, what you have failed to do. Remember, Jesus warned that the man who was in hell and who wanted to warn his brothers about its reality was there because he had failed to act to help a specific suffering and dying beggar in need. Not donate to an art museum, or not write a check to the poor in general. The man in hell should have determined how to be all right with God, and if he had done so he would have realized that a specific person he saw in need every day was his God given responsibility.

Time is such a strange things to many humans. They have it and then they complain about it. They spend more time thinking about "self improvement" tasks, such as dieting, fitness, extreme sports, and so forth than even spending a fraction of that time caring about being in an authentic relationship with God and meeting HIS expectations. How have humans become so arrogant and self confident that unlike all their previous ancestors, they care nothing about being sure they have prepared themselves to "meet their Maker?" It's not all that hard. Generations of people who could not even read or write did it, and now enjoy eternal bliss. *It requires humility and mindfulness that ultimately all of life, long or short, is borrowed time, followed by an eternity either within, or fallen out of, God's hands.* The mere thought of not being in God's hands would have been terrifying and unimaginable to devout ancestors around the world, and now, so many of their modern descendants give it no thought at all.

Do yourselves a big favor and think about it.