Imagine if man could devise a way to live "forever". What a dull world it would turn out to be! There would be no rush to bring forth new persons into the world for multiple reasons. New life after all would simply serve to over-populate the planet we live in - people are already complaining about that. It would be a genuine complaint if the old just kept getting younger! Without new life, a staleness would set it. Yet scientists world - wide try to invent body parts that rejuvenate the worn out ones. Attempts to "plasticize" man aren't that far fetched.
Imagine, if man could live for centuries, how boring it would be to repeat the same mistakes time and again without consequence. Today, the pervasive philosophy is you're only young once, so get wild. The mood then seems likely to become: you're forever young, so get wild and stay there.
If man could live for centuries, imagine the lack of need to connect to other people on deep, emotional levels. After all wouldn't looking at the same face for 250 years get old?
If man could live forever, imagine how few - if any - negative consequences would result after saying, doing, thinking that we can live forever.
If man could live forever, imagine how useless God would be. What need would there be for a relationship with God? None, because we would become our own gods - in charge of our own destiny. That - hasn't worked out over the millenia too well - but we are hard headed that's for sure.
I write this on the eve of the funeral of a friend of ours. So even though we can't live forever here on earth - nor should we aspire for that - it sure feels hard to say goodbye once again to someone who was so loved as wife, mother, grandmother and friend. Ii often does seem like the good die too young. So while it's tempting to wish, our friends and family and self would not die and leave us behind, imagine the other possibility. Living forever here on earth sure seems like a worse option indeed to me and without ever meeting God face to face!
So goodbye good friend until we meet again. May God have mercy on your soul; may God bring peace to your family; and may God bring us all into his heavenly blessing.
