Something About The Joy

Apparently, the keyword, "death," has been showing up in Google searches a lot recently. It's no wonder. Death has been pretty much in our faces over the last three months. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. When things are going well for us we tend to live in the moment, and living in the present is a good thing to do--as long as living in the present moment doesn't interfere with our making plans for a good future. It's funny that we are keen to plan for a happy retirement, but it doesn't occur to us to plan for a happy afterlife.   Death comes after retirement. And sometimes it takes us by surprise: for some of us, death will come before retirement. In any case, death is inevitable for all of us, and so it's worth doing some serious thinking about. It's good to enjoy the present, but it's also good to plan for the future, not just the near future, but also for our ultimate future. We probab

Some years ago, Jerry Jenkins and Tim LeHaye released a series of books called Left Behind .   The movie eventually followed, and it scared the hell out of some people.   The movie portrays a world thrown into chaos by the instant disappearance of a large part of its population. The story works because it's intriguing to imagine the chaos that would occur if that many people, all over the world, instantly ceased to exist.   It's only a story, of course.   A preposterous one.   We shake our heads at the gullibility of movie-goers, but people who saw the movie were shaking in their boots. There have always been naysayers--those who question the-end-of-the-world-as we-know-it.   They say, "Where is this coming he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation."   II Peter 3:4 So far the questioners have been right.   The world has not ended.   Yes, there have been frightening events.   But every time a