When I sit and contemplate eternity, I experience a touch of angst. It’s not exactly panic, but neither is it something I can just brush aside. I suppose it’s because everything on this side of eternity eventually comes to an end. It’s probably also my innate dislike of repetitive tasks and very long projects. I mean, after the first million years or so, what will there be to do that we haven’t already done?
I work on escaping the angst by recognizing that everyone there will be in the same boat. I mean, suppose after a few thousand years I think I’ve had enough. But if everyone else is looking forward to the next thousand years, I’m not gonna want to be the only one to give it up. This is, without any doubt, abstract thinking; I wonder if anyone else has these thoughts.
In a recent TV series a man had killed his wife, and with help from others the murder had been made to look like a robbery. For months the man was tortured with guilt. On his way to turn himself in to police, he phoned one of those involved with the cover-up. He said he had been thinking about hell. He said people in hell know everything that happened in their past, but they know nothing that’s happening in the present. I don’t know if that’s accurate or not. But it could be another aspect of the awfulness of spending eternity in the wrong place.
During his last session on the book of Revelation, Doc Overholt talked about the aloneness of hell – how people in hell will, for millions of years, think about how they got there, how they squandered opportunities to escape hell, and how they repeatedly rejected the gift of salvation. When I ponder that horrifying state of affairs, my eternity anxiety subsides somewhat. I mean, people who tragically wind up in hell must be continually terrified at the prospect of eternity in that indescribable place with no hope of escape. Finding oneself in hell must be the ultimate state of horror.
Rick Warren says, “…life is preparation for eternity. We were not made to last forever [in this body], and God wants us to be with Him in Heaven. One day my heart is going to stop, and that will be the end of my body – but not the end of me. I may live 60 to 100 years on earth, but I am going to spend trillions of years in eternity. This is the warm-up act – the dress rehearsal. God wants us to practice on earth what we will do forever in eternity.”
Ok, I get all except the part about “what we will do forever in eternity.” That’s a little unclear to me. It may be, as many believe, that there will be no sense of time in eternity – the one-day-is-like-a-thousand-years concept. One thing is sure – it’s over my head. But, believing that God knows best, I have to believe that He knows how to make eternity work – even for people like me, who keep trying to figure it out ahead of time.
I’m not going to understand eternity until I get there. Nor should I expect to grasp it all. And there’s a basic principle to be applied until that day occurs. “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” (Philippians 4:6 NIV)
Anxious about eternity? God says don’t be! Bring anxiety to God in prayer? By all means! Bow before God with thanksgiving? It’s imperative! Thank God for the assurance of spending eternity with Him? Hallelujah!!