Do you realize in 1900 the average life expectancy in the USA was 47? For most of human history, people’s primary function was to figure out how to get water, eat and find shelter for one more day. My trip to Northern Uganda a couple of years ago, where we thought we would go help build an orphanage, ended up spending much of our time carrying water and just surviving. Most of what we ate was harvested or killed that day! The Lord’s Prayer says, Give us this day our daily bread.

It is mostly in modern America we expect so much more. We feel slighted if someone gets sick and dies in our family before old age and even then sometimes. If our friends are living in 3,000 square foot homes and we are renting or living in a 1,500 square foot home, we feel like God isn’t fair. Most our anger and frustration with God is because our expectations are totally off track.

Picture the entire human race being in the mudslide Washington State just experienced. We are all hurtling out of control down the hill to a certain death. Somehow in an amazing way God rescues a handful of people and spares them from certain death. Then He asks, will you make your main purpose to be to rescue others before it is too late. I will make it worth your while later on! That is the biblical view of life on earth!

We have a singular/dual purpose. To Know Christ and to make Him known. That is it. That is why we are here. We aren’t here to accumulate wealth, to achieve status or any other little purpose. For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.

To die is gain! Only in the USA since about 1950 has that statement been questioned. Ask the underground church in China if they think going to be with Christ is better. No other culture would say, I want to go to heaven but not till after my daughter graduates from college and gets married! I want to go to heaven but I really want to own my own home first! We’ve lost perspective.

This is not the best possible world, it is the path to the best possible world. We are pilgrims, travelers; we are on a journey and the destination is to be with God for all eternity and invite as many as we can to go with us!

I’ve lost sight of this for a while, maybe over a decade or more. But the Lord is helping me come out of my confusion and see things more clearly again.

blessings,

Scott