What would you do?

[Matthias]

Well, drunk again. But I never lose my ability to carry on with intellectual discourse. One must never lose sight of one's place in the universe. We're on a tiny rock floating in space.

If we were to disappear tomorrow, the universe wouldn't notice, nor care.

God and his Messiah would notice and care, but it isn’t going to go down like that.

 

[Matthias]

I just happened to watch this 5 minute video yesterday @Riven. You ought to give it a watch sometime.

The student didn’t do well but it’s Sagan who I’d like you to listen to.

 

[Riven]

I just happened to watch this 5 minute video yesterday @Riven. You ought to give it a watch sometime.

The student didn’t do well but it’s Sagan who I’d like you to listen to.

I like Carl Sagan. I'll give it a watch. :)

 

[Riven]

God and his Messiah would notice and care, but it isn’t going to go down like that.

The thing is, why would he care? We're nothing. One species on one rock floating inn space. I can't grasp why we're so important to God.

 

[Riven]

I lost the love of my life. I just can't get out together for some reason. I guess its kind of like widows that never remarry. You just can't. Letting go is so hard. I still love her.

 

[quietthinker]

Your baby brother dies while you are still a child. You've never really lived life, just on autopilot. You're in debt up to your eyeballs. You're addicted to alchol just to take the edge off.

I dont know what to do. Sometimes I feel like life isn't worth living. The pain of everything is just do much to endure. I think about Jesus and what he endured on the cross. It makes me want to keep going.

But it's just such an awful existence. To exist for others, but never truly live. I hate it so much. I don't know what to do. I can't rely on myself, just screw everything up.

I'm sorry. I don't mean to burden others with my problems. But it's just so hard. It wasn't supposed to be so hard. Living life shouldn't be a disaster at every waking moment. I just want to be happy. I want to be able to tell Jesus that in sorry. That I tried so hard. I tried my best to believe in him.

In my heart, that's where I am. An overwhelming sense of sadness and hopelessness. If this is what hell feels like, then I'm already there.

I would visit Alcoholics Anonymous. They have been a great help in teaching me about things not understood both intellectually and emotionally Go there, stick around and listen up big. If you are willing the right track will unfold through means and with people you never expected.

 

[Matthias]

The thing is, why would he care? We're nothing. One species on one rock floating inn space. I can't grasp why we're so important to God.

King David asked the same question - “what is man that you think of him? What is the son of man that you care for him?” (Psalm 8:4)

You’re thinking like a king. David answered the question in his psalm.

 

[Matthias]

I lost the love of my life. I just can't get out together for some reason. I guess its kind of like widows that never remarry. You just can't. Letting go is so hard. I still love her.

I’m sorry for your loss. Is this something that happened recently? Is she deceased?

 

[Riven]

I’m sorry for your loss. Is this something that happened recently? Is she deceased?

No. It's old high school sweetheart stuff that bubbles up to the surface when I'm about halfway down the bottle. I wasn't lying though. I still do live her. But that ship has sailed.

 

[Matthias]

No. It's old high school sweetheart stuff that bubbles up to the surface when I'm about halfway down the bottle. I wasn't lying though. I still do live her. But that ship has sailed.

It sounds like you need closure. Do you have it when the cork is in the bottle?

 

[Riven]

It sounds like you need closure. Do you have it when the cork is in the bottle?

No. I just think about it less.

 

[Matthias]

“There are times when a man cannot understand; there are times when life is a dark mystery and when there are problems which are so immense that they defy all solution; there are times when in face of this distracted world the work of Jesus seems failure. But if at the heart of our personal world there still remains this Jesus, if he is still quite unforgettable, if he refuses to be banished from the mind and from the heart, then in the end he comes - and the darkness becomes light.”

(William Barclay, The Mind of Jesus, p. 313)

 

[Aunty Jane]

The important topic for me is whether or not there is anything after this life. You have told me there isn't until the messiah resurrects each person.

This view contradicts the common view that we eitger go to heaven or hell upon death. I enjoy pondering both perspectives in contrast to my own. That of course being that the most logical assumption one can make is that we remain dead forever. I use Occam's razor when dealing with competing ideas such as this.

Reading through the thread it’s been interesting to see the imput and everyone has their own ideas about what happens after death……the only reason to ask those pertinent questions is that we humans are the only creation of God who know that we will die.…..the only creation who can contemplate death….their own death and that of those close to them…..and what it means in the aftermath. We grieve deeply and hold solemn farewells for those who have died and yet what the Bible says is true…..

Solomon wrote….
”The living realize that they will die, whereas the dead know nothing whatever. They will have no further reward, and even the memory of them will be obliterated. For them all love and hatred and jealousyhave already perished.Never again will they have any sharein anything that is done under the sun. . . . .Whatever task your hand finds to do, expend all your efforts on it, for you will find no work or planning or knowledge or wisdom in the netherworld to which you are going.” (Eccl 9:5, 6, 10 NCB)

The living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing whatever. Death is a state of complete unconsciousness…there is no “work, planning or knowledge in the “netherworld” (Sheol, which is translated in the Jewish Tanakh as “the grave”….a place of “silence”. (Psalm 115:17)
Who remembers their great, great grandparents? We know that they existed but we will not know them personally until God brings them back to us. Imagine the introductions!

God did not create humans with an inbuilt program for death, as he did with the animal creation. Animals live in the present moment, and cannot contemplate anything in the future, even if they can learn something from the past. If they are hungry, they eat…if they are thirsty, they drink, but as for contemplating the future …..squirrels do not know “why” they are gathering supplies for the winter…they are just programmed to do it. Survival is programmed into them.
Death to us humans is as foreign to us today as it was when Cain killed Abel. it touches a part of us that nothing else does. Some never recover from it…as your own experience demonstrates.

Because the devil told a lie in Eden, humans have assumed that we “surely will not die”…… a lie told to Eve so that she would question God‘s command. It’s a lie that has been perpetuated ever since then…..all pagan religions teach that death is simply the gateway to another life, but somewhere along that road, Christendom adopted the lie and still teaches it….it is not a Bible teaching.
There is no “heaven or hell” just “life or death”.

Resurrection is what the Bible promises…..and it’s a return to this life, as a reunion of families once separated by death, now restored to enjoy life together as God first intended.

The Bible tells us that “hope serves as an anchor for the soul” so that we won’t drift away and become discouraged by the trials of this life. It is the hope of the resurrection that keeps us from sinking into the depths of those feelings of hopelessness. Instead we can look forward to the time when we can welcome lost loved ones back.

No one we have lost in death is gone forever, and the hope of the resurrection keeps us in expectation of not only seeing them again, but in the surroundings that God also purposed for us in the beginning….in paradise on this earth. Where are your favorite places to visit? The whole earth will be a paradise with no sickness, aging or death to steal life away from us. (Rev 21:2-4)

The truth is what the Bible itself teaches….that death is the opposite of life, and was never meant to happen. We have no way to process the death of someone close to us, let alone losing an entire family like Job did.
But Job too believed in the resurrection…as he was languishing in his grief, he said to God….

Job 14:14-15….
”If a man dies, shall he live again? All the days of my service I would wait, till my renewal should come.
You would call, and I would answer you; you would long for the work of your hands”.

As one who probably felt as if he too would join his children in death, he thought of the resurrection and death as “service”.…a sentence in which to wait until the call from God to awaken and “renew” his life. He knew that he would also see his children again.

Jesus himself said that he would raise the dead….(John 5:28-29) including those who did vile things in their past. Death is the highest sentence there is for any crime, so having served that sentence, a person is now raised because Christ’s blood has purchased their lives and rescues all the dead who have ever lived and died in ignorance.

I look forward to the day when I can welcome my own lost loved ones back from the sleep of death.
Anyone who tries to tell you that the dead aren’t really dead, are promoting a satanic lie.

When the dead awaken from their “sleep” it will be as if they just closed their eyes but a moment ago, even if they have been sleeping for hundreds or even thousands of years.

Death is not something to fear….and it is something that will itself be destroyed in the future as “the last enemy” of mankind. (1 Cor 15:26)

 

[PS95]

No. I just think about it less.

Ahh Riven, yeah drinking does that... been there. They say it is a depressant -could be why. I was widowed really young in my 20s. When I drank I experienced crying jags that I no longer had when not drinking.
There is a place where alcohol overtakes us and few can find where it is to stop before it does.
In the bible somewhere, Proverbs I think.. it talks about how strong drink goes down smoothly but then bites you like a serpent. So true.

Now that you are talking about the drinking- are you thinking maybe you want to take charge of your life better and do something about it?

 

[Riven]

Ahh Riven, yeah drinking does that... been there. They say it is a depressant -could be why. I was widowed really young in my 20s. When I drank I experienced crying jags that I no longer had when not drinking.
There is a place where alcohol overtakes us and few can find where it is to stop before it does.
In the bible somewhere, Proverbs I think.. it talks about how strong drink goes down smoothly but then bites you like a serpent. So true.

Now that you are talking about the drinking- are you thinking maybe you want to take charge of your life better and do something about it?

Yeah. It's just one of those things. We understood each other, you know? She was a devout Christian and I was l wasn't. But she loved me, and I loved her. I screwed it up and I didn't fix it in time.

When I was in high school, they asked me, where do you see yourself in five years? I didn't know how to answer that question because I was always living in the moment. Here I am, nearly 20 years later, drinking alone in an attenpt to forget.

I became that guy. The guy no one else wants to be. A cautionary tale.

 

[Matthias]

Yeah. It's just one of those things. We understood each other, you know? She was a devout Christian and I was l wasn't. But she loved me, and I loved her. I screwed it up and I didn't fix it in time.

When I was in high school, they asked me, where do you see yourself in five years? I didn't know how to answer that question because I was always living in the moment. Here I am, nearly 20 years later, drinking alone in an attenpt to forget.

I became that guy. The guy no one else wants to be. A cautionary tale.

 

[PS95]

Yeah. It's just one of those things. We understood each other, you know?

Yes I do know.

She was a devout Christian and I was l wasn't. But she loved me, and I loved her. I screwed it up and I didn't fix it in time.

That is a painful regret. You aren't alone- we all have those. We have a choice to make though.
Wallow forever in it OR stand up, learn from it, brush it off and move on.

When I was in high school, they asked me, where do you see yourself in five years?I didn't know how to answer that question because I was always living in the moment.

I absolutely hated that question!! I was 17 and had no clue. My father forbid any higher education. (JW) The end was coming any moment..

Here I am, nearly 20 years later, drinking alone in an attenpt to forget.
I became that guy. The guy no one else wants to be. A cautionary tale.

Question is, do you really want to stay that guy? You don't have to. It's not too late, but it will be if you choose stay there. That day will be sooner than you think if you keep boozing.
There will be no one to blame but yourself. That's the the thing- you have what you need to switch this thing around. Don't believe the lie that it's too late or you can't change. IT IS A LIE.
Do you want to? I put that question to you.. You have to want it.
--- Or do you choose to wallow in high school regret and booze the rest of your days? ---

 

[Matthias]

I want to be able to tell Jesus …

You’re able. He’s able.

 

[Matthias]

I think about Jesus and what he endured on the cross. It makes me want to keep going.

But it's just such an awful existence. To exist for others, but never truly live. I hate it so much. I don't know what to do.

I was searching for something this morning, came across the following pagan (Stoic) philosophy in the process and was reminded of your post.

”You become what you give your attention to.” - Epictetus

There’s a measure of wisdom in what he said.

Jesus is the incarnation of wisdom.

”What would you do?”

What I would do is give more attention to Jesus.

 

[Jay Ross]

Jesus said that where you place your treasure, there your heart will be.

Jesus' advice was to store your treasures in Heaven.

Remembers that God's storage fee for what you treasure, stored in heaven, is free.