What gives it meaning?
March 3, 2009 (Tuesday)
I have long been intrigued with what happens to abandoned buildings. You can see them all around the country, slowly but surely wasting away, standing there as monuments of what used to be. Windows are broken out, paint is peeling, bricks are falling, weeds are growing, etc. etc.
The History Channel has a program which shows what would happen to the earth if all the people were suddenly gone. The programs are offered for sale at History.com on the Internet. The one I saw was two hours long and in lifelike presentations showed what might happen after 100 years, then various periods up to 1000 years. At 1000 years without humankind to repair, paint, and fix up buildings, bridges, etc. the earth would devour with corrosion, rust and other processes all the buldings, automobiles, bridges, garments, fences, you name it. Everything made by humans would be gone completely and taken over by the earth itself. A visitor at that time would never know there had ever been anyone here on earth. Every sign of man’s presence would be gone forever. I found the hypothetical projections, done so well in film that looked absolutely like the real thing, to be mere confirmation of what the Bible has warned us about for a long time. We are told in the Scriptures about a “new heaven” and a “new earth” that will replace the present ones.
James asks, “What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes” (James 4:15 NIV). We are reminded many times in the Bible that our life is short and temporary. We’ve always known that to be true of individuals; now we know it would be true of every material object humans have brought into being. This is just another reminder that we find our significance in God. As the Scripture says, “In Him we live and move and have our being.” Faith gives meaning to our lives.