Monday, September 18, 2017
566 - 'Life is a Line...'
Spirituality
Column No. 566
September 19, 2017
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) is more a fan of Jesus than of philosophy; philosophy can explain sin but it sure can’t cure it. Jesus is the only truly happy ending.
September 19, 2017
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary
‘Life is a Line …’
By Bob Walters
Toward the end of my teen years a light-hearted,
not-especially-philosophical high school friend offered this practical and
subtly philosophical life’s insight:
“Life is a
line,” he said, smiling and expressing that line by thumping his left hand and
then his right hand a couple feet apart on a table in front of him. “You are
born here (left hand), you die here (right), and here in the middle you gotta
sleep and you gotta eat. Other than
that, you make choices and live with whatever comes next.”
OK it’s not
Kierkegaard, but the image of that line stayed with me because it speaks to
humanity’s – each individual human’s
– God-ordained freedom, opportunity, and movement. In life, are we going forward, backward, or
running in place? There was no mystery,
really, at that impregnable stage of life when “forward” was the only
imaginable direction; “backwards” or “staying in place” were too horrible to
contemplate.
Back then I
wasn’t thinking so much about God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, eternity, or hope, but only this finite life’s
seemingly infinite road ahead. It was
some years later that I learned a bit more, philosophically, about the western
world’s “linear sequential programming,” i.e., “Life actually IS a line,” versus the eastern world’s
quite different orientation, “Life is a circle.” And then you discover that smart people have
been thinking about philosophy – life’s meaning and purpose – for a very long
time, and learn there is way more to it than lines and circles.
But I bring
all this up because it has settled into my being that the one, simple,
dependable way forward; the way to navigate life’s “line” for all time, reason,
purpose, and meaning, is holy relationship with and faith in Jesus Christ. Forward is the direction Christ is going;
it’s the only way. Here is how I know
and why I want to go that way, too.
Let’s start
with the cosmic millstone around my neck – the sin in my life. Sparing the salient specifics of both “sin the
condition” and “sin the action,” what I notice is that I’ve not yet sinned
tomorrow. I probably will – sin, I mean;
in fact I doubt I can get through the rest of today cleanly. But that millstone is both the worst of my
past and the anchor binding my present unless I choose to let Jesus – in faith knowing
the truth of his promise – break that millstone of sin cleanly from my neck. Then I won’t have to live with the perpetual
weight and fear of it. The line – the
way ahead – is free.
The Good
News? Jesus on the cross already broke
that millstone; it’s gone. The bad news? We have a free choice whether to believe Jesus
or not; to keep that millstone or not. And
that, cosmically, is life’s most important choice because I know this: That
millstone – whether your own neck is in it or not – is ultimately heading for
the deepest pit God can create. As the old knight said in Indiana Jones 3: “Choose wisely.”
Sure, sins endure
… for now. We see them, live them,
suffer with them. But they were and are
covered by the life-restoring blood and resurrection of Jesus – “once for all,” is how the Bible
repeatedly puts it. Our hope is the eternal
tomorrow without sin.
How
thankful I am that Jesus is my freedom from before and my lifeline ahead.
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) is more a fan of Jesus than of philosophy; philosophy can explain sin but it sure can’t cure it. Jesus is the only truly happy ending.
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