Acclaimed Norwegian author Ove Knausgaard wrote: “While observing the crowds circulating in the concourse below, I thought in twenty-five years a third of them would be dead; in fifty years two-thirds, and; in a hundred, all of them. And what would they leave behind; what had their lives been worth?”
Fair question, is it not?
In an article about how miserable many of these successful Wall Street people were, the author quoted one man as saying: “I feel like I’m wasting my life. When I die, is anyone going to care that I earned an extra percentage point of return? My work feels totally meaningless.”
Yes, as human beings, we struggle to at times find meaning to our lives -- , lives that we know will one day be gone. That is, though it’s the fate of all life on earth to die, as humans, we alone know it, kind of a tough rub for being like ourselves who can contemplate at least the idea of an eternity that leaves us behind, not just in the dust but as the dust.
Hence the wonderful promise of the Gospel. We are beings created in the image of God, and though that image has been defaced, the promise is that one day it will be restored for eternity in a new heaven and a new earth. “For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; And the former shall not be remembered or come to mind” (Isa. 65:17). That is, the eternity that, otherwise, would leave us behind is, in fact, going to carry us along in it, not as dust but as the living, thriving, loving and happy beings we had originally been created to be.
