To Infinity... and Beyond

To Infinity... and Beyond

When I was a kid, my big brother always found new and innovative ways to scare the living daylights out of me!  Frightening stories, haunting sounds, eerie things dangled outside my window… you name it.  His most brilliant schemes involved creating life-size creepy characters positioned in my room at night for maximum terror.

But one thing scared me more than any of my brother’s crazy antics back then:  the concept of eternal life.  The terrifying realization that I had no alternative but to exist forever…  Millions upon millions of centuries was too much for my young mind to grasp.  I felt trapped in a dizzying infinite spiral, with no way to escape.

It may sound crazy for Christians to be apprehensive over a never-ending stay in paradise, but my childhood fears were not unusual. Dwelling on the infinite is overwhelming and unsettling.  Some folks even worry they’ll be monumentally bored in heaven after the first, oh… 100 trillion years or so.

As I got older, I realized that my fears of eternal life were nothing more than a lack of faith.  Fear is the opposite of faith.  We often fear the things we don’t understand, but Job 36:26 says, “God is greater than we can understand.”  Heaven will be so amazing we can’t begin to comprehend the experience.  A loving God will never leave us eternally bored, disillusioned, or desperately seeking an “opt-out” button from His glorious eternal plan.  We can count on that.

Is there something in your life that you fear right now?  We all have our individual anxieties, but Jesus said in John 14:1, “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in Me.“  Let’s put our trust in an all-powerful God who empowers us to live by faith, not fear.

- Ron Reid

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