Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Volcanos and Life

It sure doesn’t take much to mess things up in life.  A volcano erupts in Iceland.  On television or the internet we see spectacular pictures of the eruption.  It causes real hardship for people living nearby but we don’t think much about it, or about them.  A couple days pass and the volcano is spewing ash high into the air, right up where aircraft fly.  Suddenly there are no aircraft flying near Iceland.  The ash cloud drifts and soon there are no aircraft flying in Europe.  All of a sudden a volcanic eruption in Iceland is a huge international crisis.  Cancelled flights have people stranded all across the world.  Airlines, just recovering from the worst recession in 90 years are once again teetering on the brink of financial collapse.  And what happens?  Stranded travellers want their governments to do something.  Airlines will soon be asking for financial help.  Suddenly everyone wants someone else to look after them.  That’s human nature. 

Human nature.  We want to live our own lives, have our own way, do our own thing, but when real trouble comes, we want someone to bail us out.  Someone else needs to do something to get me out of this mess.  Someone else is responsible.  Life, and our eventual death, is no different.  Many people want to live as they please, do their own thing, but at the end want God to take care of them.  They want to ignore God all their lives, then have Him take care of them after it is all over. 

God is wonderful.  He is kind and merciful.  He will take to me heaven, but it is on His terms, not mine.  He is God.  He can dictate terms and His terms are pretty straightforward.  We need to honestly ask Him to forgive us for not doing things His way.  We must put our faith in Jesus as the one who will save us from our sins, the things we’ve done that aren’t what God wants us to do.  We must agree to turn to God and try to live for Him.  The terms are easy to understand and the payoff, the return on investment, is incredible, yet few choose to take God up on His offer.  It’s our selfishness and pride.  We want to do it our way and we don’t want to submit to anyone else’s authority, not even God’s. 

The volcano spews ash and fire and brimstone.  People are extremely inconvenienced.  Who is going to help?  In the case of life and death and judgement, God in His infinite mercy has provided a safety line.  He will help.  I just can’t believe that so few people are willing to grab hold of the line, grab hold of Jesus.  At the end we will find out that there are no negotiations about heaven, hell and eternity.  We have a lifetime to choose, but once life is over there are no more choices.  Our choice must be made while we are still alive.

No comments:

Post a Comment