An Eternal Perspective

I've been reading "Out of My Mind" by the late Joseph T. Bayly. This book is a collection of articles from his column that once appeared in Eternity magazine. In his article from June 1964, he tells a story of a church editor who announced that he had colon cancer. An "old war horse" of a man replied, "Good. Thank God for it. You don't begin to live until you know you are going to die."

"Dying men aren't afraid of their reputations. And they throw everything into battle." (Bayly, 1964). This got me thinking: Aren't we all dying men? The men listening to the tragic news of this church editor's cancer were no less dying than the man with the cancer himself. I think of people who are in their fifties, and most probably, they will be with us for about twenty or thirty some odd years according to medical studies on today's human life span. I am thirty. This means, unless the Lord takes me sooner, I'll be here for another forty to fifty years or so. Most people that have gone before us have been dust for at least twenty lifetimes.

What does that do to the psyche to realize that?

When I realized this last night as I read Bayly's article, it revealed freedom. It made me realize that to cling to this life is akin to clinging to smoke vapors and to cling to the treasures of this world is truly a waste of time and of a life. I thought about all the people who have gone before. Did they realize that their riches or even want of riches would be irrelevant in the reality of heaven or hell? Ok, maybe "riches" is too cliche. What about careers or social standing? What about beauty or fitness?

So, this begs the question: What on earth are we here for and where do we go at the end? I'm not going to answer this by prefacing, "Because I am Christian, I believe..." or "According to the new best-seller, The Purpose Driven Life..." I will simply say the Bible says many things in answer to this question. I am not a theologian and not articulate enough to delve into an entire dissertation, but I will say that in Micah 6:8, it states: "He has showed you, o man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God."


Now, I've gotten off on a bit of a tangent, and Bayly's article was titled "Join the Church and Escape," as he exhorted Christians not to think of the church as a vacation spot, but a tent pitched in the middle of a battlefield. When we read what is says in Micah 6:8, doing justly and loving mercy will many times require one to fully realize and act upon the spiritual battle we are in. However, all this to say that when we realize that we are all dying men- when we realize that we are "but dust" :), how the treasures of this world should fade! And that is but the PRECURSOR to what realization follows this reality: That is that we are then free to be what we were made for...that reputations, riches, fame, status won't even be remembered a century from now and should loose their shackles on our lives as we see their futility. We don't need a death sentence or a diagnosis of a terminal illness to open our eyes to the fact that this life is fleeting and that we have, indeed, been called to a work for God's glory.

Smiling, I remember my pastor (who is the son of Joseph Bayly) using a recurring phrase in his sermons when he would speak of the folly of chasing after or even giving worry to things that have no bearing on eternity: "It just don't matter..."



"So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom." Psalm 90:12