Dirt

You might think that I have it all together. You may have seen me do a few nice things here and there, – volunteer at church, pay for an elderly woman’s bus pass, give lunch to a homeless man – but the fact that I may have done a few good deeds in my life is not going to save me. If you truly knew me, I don’t think you would consider me to be a ‘good’ person, certainly not anywhere on the spectrum close to “perfect”. I am a broken human being and the mess that I’ve created in my wake is something that I can never repair.

I lie, I cheat, I steal. I remember being called a “goody two-shoes”, but I spent nearly an entire school-year’s worth of Sundays looking at pornography in my dorm room rather than going to church. I’ve jumped out of the back window of a house because I was afraid of being caught by the police at an underage drinking party. I’ve spent countless hours of my life lusting after other women and I’ve struggled with greed, envy, bitterness, anger, and self-worth. I have said and done so many things in my life that I wish I could take back; there are so many broken hearts that I wish I could mend; but life is linear – we can never go back, we can never change what we’ve done.

Do you ever wonder what happens when our lives end? You’ve thought about it; every human being has at least a few (hundred) times in his life. Is there a heaven or a hell, do we reincarnate into another being to live on the earth again, or does nothing occur once we breathe our last breath? Let’s assume for a moment that there is a heaven, which also assumes that there is a god of some form. From what I’ve experienced in life to this point, most people I have encountered have at least some desire to go to heaven (if it exists). So what would it take to get into this ‘heaven’ – what would we, as human beings, have to achieve in order to be deserving of spending an eternity in a place of perfection?

Being that I live in the hippie-inhabited city of Boulder, I’ve heard (and seen) some pretty interesting perspectives on religion. But the most common belief that I have heard when it comes to getting into heaven is that it simply requires a “generally good person”. So as long as the amount of good deeds that you have done outweigh the amount of bad deeds you have done by life’s end, you receive a one-way ticket into heaven, free to frolic among harp-wielding cherubim and cotton-candy clouds. (And this idea of “being a good person” applies across all religions, although the concept of eternity is different for each one). This also leads one to believe that if someone is generally a bad person, he is destined to go to hell, but we all know that everyone goes to heaven anyways – except for Hitler, Stalin, and Saddam Hussein.

So consider that your life is coming to an end. You are lying in a sterile hospital room, the beeps and whirs of medical machinery fill your ears, and a sliver of light pierces though a crack in the shutters, falling across your face. It’s uncomfortably bright and loud. Flexible tubing emerges from beneath your worn and weathered skin, some tubes pumping fluids in, others pumping fluids out.

You have been lying in the same hospital room and in the same hospital bed for the past two weeks, so you’ve had some time to consider the life you’ve lived. You volunteered at an animal shelter while you were in college and worked with children who had learning disabilities as you worked your way through medical school. You became a doctor, saving hundreds of peoples’ lives and donating your services to local charities several times a year. At one point in your career you took a year of unpaid leave from your practice to work as a doctor in an AIDS inflicted area of Uganda, saving the lives of countless children. You smile, thinking of the lives that you have changed over the course of your own. But you then consider the things that you have done that were not good. You wince, knowing that what has been done cannot be erased. But truly, you begin to think, I was a good person, just look at the amazing things I’ve done! How many other people can claim to have done what I’ve done?

But let me ask you this: How can we ever know if we have done enough good deeds to warrant an eternity in heaven? How can we ever keep track of every single action, word, or thought that occurred during our eighty-five-year existence on this planet? And how can we know if our ‘good’ was good enough? Every single lustful thought that has passed through your mind was a sin. Every white lie you’ve told, every bitter grudge you’ve held – every single sin we commit causes us to be deserving of hell. How can we escape our actions? How can we ever correct what we’ve done?

We can’t.

If my eternity was determined by the proportion of goods deeds I’ve done in relation to the bad deeds I’ve done, I can’t say that I would feel confident in knowing that I would somehow reach heaven. Every religion explains that we, as humans, have to strive to reach god (or the gods). It all depends on our own effort and what we’ve achieved in our lives. This is what will determine if we are able to be with a certain deity or deities. All religions are structured this way – except for one.

You’ve heard of a man named Jesus. He explained that we can never earn our way into heaven. It’s impossible. No matter what we achieve in our lifetime, it will never happen on our own power because we are broken and separated from God. But He offers us a gift – a gift of salvation and an eternity in heaven. Jesus walked the earth and bore the ultimate punishment in order to save us from ourselves, because of His love for us.  It is through Him that we discover a life worth living, and all it requires is for us to put our faith and belief in Him. It is only what we allow Him to do in and through us, not what we do for Him through our own effort that is worth anything.

Everyone on this planet is focused on filling their empty lives with things that allow them to dull the pain of emptiness, if even for only a moment. Drugs, sex, material possessions – we use them all to blind ourselves from the meaningless lives we are currently living, simply because it’s the best thing we know to do, and we haven’t found anything better.

But I have found something better. The things of this world simply leave me even more broken and more empty than before. They satisfy for a moment, but leave me thirsting for more, causing me to throw myself into a destructive cycle over and over again. I have taken a drink from Water that will never cause me to thirst again, and I want you to taste it too.

Your life will never be the same.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” – John 3:16

“Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” –John 17:3

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…” –Romans 3:23

           

“For the wages of sin is death” [spiritual separation from God] – Romans 6:23

“But God demonstrated his love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” –Romans 5:8

“…Christ died for our sins… He was buried, He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures… He appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, He appeared to more than five hundred…” – 1 Corinthians 15:3-6

“Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.’” –John 14:6

“If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.” –Romans 10:9-10

“For it is by Grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast.” –Ephesians 2:8-9

“Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with Me.” –Revelation 3:20

**Being that this is a blog, I am not always able to address every single detail or angle of a topic, simply due to the sake of brevity. If you ever desire to discuss a certain aspect of what I’ve written (or haven’t), please feel free to contact me. I would be more than happy to chat with you over coffee.  //Benten