It’s pandemic times. Viruses and their variants I’m not particularly eager to name. Why? It makes them legitimate, perhaps. As with things we don’t want to happen, we don’t bring them up. Jinx!
Okay. I got a head cold. I’ve not had one in nearly 12 months, and before then, it was over a year. I know what they are like. Sore throat. Sinus weirdness. Hard to talk, swallow, and my ears plug up. An annual thing, probably. But with the pandemic uncertainty, you schedule a C-19 test and do a self-quarantine. Why? Others will fear the worst! Don’t even think about what it could mean if you test positive!
Imagination is a hard thing to fight. Reality says one thing, but fears say another. Fearing the unknown, we imagine something worse than reality.
There’s a Boogieman under the bed! You know, the one you have never seen – a scary proposition to search for it with a flashlight. A monster in the closet! Yikes! Investigate only if you are brave! There’s no telling what you may see!
Friday night black and white movies from the ’60s. Werewolf. Mummy. Creature from the black lagoon. Dracula. Spiders that grow bigger than a house. Hands with poison dripping from their fingernails crawling up the back of the couch. We could always stay up and watch “W-e-i-r-d….!” It came on after the news on one of the three stations you received with rabbit ears. Then, after the frightful movies were done, you would crawl in the dark across the floor to your brother’s bed and do your best to imitate what you had just seen!
Fright Fest!
In the morning light, the minefield of lincoln logs, model cars, tinker toys, and other pointed toys you failed to put away showed you how dangerous the reality was!
This Set My Mind Into Thought Mode
In my Biblical mindset, there is a heaven and a hell. We all want to end up at the best place and not the worst place. Jesus talked about the options often enough for me to know they must be real.
Our fear-laden imaginations keep us worried about that one little sin that something more significant than a lil’ ol’ white lie and other gotcha’s along the path will point us the wrong way. And they will. So, we work hard to keep our feet pointed in the right direction, living better than we have a right to, and making sure we are correct.
Watch out! The serpent or sin is out to get you! Maybe it’s even crouching at your front door (Genesis 4:7)
We think it’s hard to live right and easy to live wrong. That’s where we make our first mistake!
Jesus is talking in hearing distance of the Pharisees who were lovers of money (Luke 16:14). Though they poked fun at Jesus, he begins to tell stories that show the attitude of those who love money more than righteousness. One story goes like this:
“There was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple
and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day.
But there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, full of sores,
who was laid at his gate, desiring to be fed with the crumbs
which fell from the rich man’s table.
Moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.
So it was that the beggar died,
and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom.
The rich man also died and was buried.
And being in torments in Hades,
he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.
“Then he cried and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.’
But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted and you are tormented. And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us.’
“Then he said, ‘I beg you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father’s house, for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment.’
Abraham said to him, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.’
And he said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’
But he said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the prophets,
neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead.’ “
Luke 16:19-31 NKJV
It will not be a voice from beyond the grave that will convince us. It’s the Word of God, the books of the Law, the writings of the prophets, the Gospels, and Epistles. Those are the words we need to set our path moving straight and not crooked.
I cannot imagine what the place of torment must be like as he cried for just a drip of water. Hot? Dry? Wasteland? I’m not reading between the lines, but you know what it’s like to be thirsty and have nothing! But Lazarus is in the bosom of Abraham, the Father of Many Nations. There all his needs are met.
The worst torment? Seeing what could have been! For eternity struggling with the reality that is worse than any imagination.
Between the two zones? A great gulf separating the distances. No Trespassing!
Down The Road
Perhaps the challenge we all face is not understanding the ending from the beginning. When you start down a path of life, have you ever paused to consider where it’s taking you?
Pick up a habit? Hooked, and then paying the consequences of choice. Face a temptation? Guilty! When you let the allure attract you, instead of following sage advice from the Bible, Coach, Mentor, or Friend. Start a business? Committed! It takes hard work for anything to succeed. Eventually, the bottom line is the challenge most feared. (Imagine restaurants during the pandemic.) Begin a relationship, then tie the knot, and voila! Your responsibilities are just beginning!
As a tyke, we think so little about outcomes and the ending of it all. Our vision is limited to our age. Our abilities minimize our experiences. The closer we reach the end, we wish we could start over with a better set of values and knowledge.
No matter what, you can change as you go! That’s the beauty of life. Pick a poor career, it may be difficult, but you can drop one and start another!. Choose a wrong friend? Hot Potatoe! Let ’em go. There is a friend closer than a brother!
It all begins with thinking it through! That’s the key to a better life!
Thimk and Do (Click to Read my thought on Thimk!)
As a favorite character likes to say, “Remember, I’m pulling for you. We’re all in this together.” To the which I add… Praying for you!