“For us who believe, this world is as bad as it will ever get; this is our Hell…we have eternity with God to look forward to. For those who do not believe, this world is the best they will see; this is their Heaven…they have eternity without God, with fire and burning to look forward to.”

These aren’t the exact words, but the idea is present. Our seminary student body president today said this during our chapel time. We were praying through the Lord’s Prayer piece by piece, with the VA Tech incident at the forefront. He then jumped to Revelation 21 where the new heaven and earth are described…and this concept flowed from that. Here on earth, those of us who believe in Christ and trust Him, walking with Him…this is our Hell…this is the worst we will ever experience. We may have difficulties; heartache, persecution, sickness, torture, and death…but that’s as bad as it gets. After this life is over for us, we have an amazing eternity to look forward to. Our tears will be wiped away, our sicknesses gone…we will be in the presence of our Creator and Beloved Lord. It puts it all in perspective for us. However, for those who don’t know Him, trust in Him, or have not given their lives to Him…this is Heaven…this is the best they can ever hope for. They don’t have a glorious eternity to look forward to, but rather, one of torture. This sounds harsh and I know some of you reading this will think I am being a radical Christian-type who is closed-minded…but this is just the truth of the situation. My heart hurts for such people…I know my life, whereas it has been far from awful, has had some heart-wrenching moments where I didn’t want to see another day…and I’ve really had it pretty good.

The beauty of the current situation though is that things can change. Those who don’t know Him can know Him. They can have more to look forward to than this life. They don’t have to live in the fear that this is all there is…that this is, to quote the movie, “As good as it gets”.

Totally random side note:

I took Jack in to the doctor this week...so I have a rental car which I have affectionately named "Harold" for the time-being. He is a Saturn Ion...not my favorite, but he's a little crazy in that he has really good acceleration and takes curves a lot faster than Jack. :)