ROOTS: Man + Salvation
Although my wife Kim and I have lived in our current house nearly 5 years -- incredibly, we hadn’t experienced a significant power outage until the day before writing. Of course, it happened late in the afternoon as darkness was about to set in… I kept anticipating the lights would come back on momentarily as usual – but they weren’t. As minutes turned to hours, one can’t help but think of worst-case scenarios in relation to our needs… like, refrigerated food – what if it eventually spoils? Heat -- will we have enough to survive the wintery night? And, truthfully rounding out the top three, Communication -- what if I can’t re-charge my cell phone?
Kim was working late at her office doing paperwork (she’s a school counselor) and thankfully, her building still had electricity. So, I grabbed a leftover casserole from our darkened refrigerator, and drove to the high school where we microwaved our dinner and talked. And I started thinking about how our needs are so interconnected with our fears.
God created humans to have a survival instinct. We want to live! The needs I was getting concerned about during that power outage – food, warmth, staying connected with others – stemmed from fears of being able to survive and thrive. Ten years ago, in late October 2012, my family had to live without power for 11 days – it wasn’t pretty. The gas stove was our only heat source. We had to get water to flush toilets out of a nearby creek. We felt like we were living in the 1800s!
A power-outage is out of my control; I am woefully dependent on the electric company resolving a problem that is somewhere out there – yet feels so central to my well-being. Thankfully, this time, it only lasted five hours, yet those five hours served as another reminder of my interlocking needs and fears.
“Death” seems like the top fear most of us have, yet many psychiatric experts have said humanity’s ultimate fear, when being honest -- is the unknown. So perhaps it’s not so much fearing the actual experience of dying, as it is the uncertainty about what happens next. Most of us instinctively know we will continue existing, that our souls are created to live forever – but where will we be?
Pew Research says 72% of Americans believe in Heaven, and 58% believe in Hell. If we asked the average person on the street who goes where, they’ll probably say “Good people go to Heaven, bad people go to Hell.”
I absolutely understand how folks think that way. If it were up to us, that’s how it would be. But when you really break it down, it’s not that simple – who is good and who is bad? If a scientist cures cancer, but also murders her husband – which place would you, if Judge and Jury, send her? Or, let’s say a man works hard in skilled labor to provide for his family, after faithfully serving our military four years… but once, on a dare, he sexually assaulted a woman to impress his friends? Do we somehow put all his bad deeds and good deeds on a Cosmic Scale and see which way it tips? Who decides the weight of the various behaviors? Yeah, very complicated indeed. Too much so.
God, in His wisdom, knew it was an impossible feat for any of His human creations to ever be “good enough” for men and women to earn a spot in His perfect Heaven. He created Hell for our enemy Satan and his demons, but the Bible tells us it is also the default eternal destination for all who have sinned (any lie, theft, lust, etc. is sin – we’ve all done it, as Romans 3:23 states).
I’ve read various views of what Hell could be like (literal, painful flames; metaphorical flames of regret; purgatory to work out one’s own salvation; and annihilation where one’s soul is snuffed out) – and no matter what it really is, I know this for certain: I never want to go there. Do you? Of course not! Satan has tried to mock the seriousness of Hell – lying to us that it could be a big party with one’s drinking buddies – but down deep, none of us really buys that theory. Everyone knows it must be horrifying, and yet we’re somehow afraid of doing whatever it takes to avoid it. Instead, many would rather focus on getting through our daily life, kicking that can down the road.
We are spiritually dead without receiving God’s forgiveness. So, Father God sent His Son Jesus to earth, to live sinlessly and die on a cross for the rest of us, to pay for our sins. As the most famous verse in the Bible states -- For God so loved the world, that He gave his only son, that whoever will believe in Him will not perish, but have everlasting life! (John 3:16)
When we receive that gift of salvation, we get our ticket punched for Heaven. Our rags in exchange for His riches. It truly seems too good to be true, but that’s the way God designed it.
God replaces our greatest fear with hope and assurance – that all our needs will forever be met, on that sweet day when we begin enjoying eternity in His peaceful Heaven.
