Eternity talk – not just for funerals anymore
by Rick Warren

Help your people comprehend that there is more to life than just here and now. Show them that life is just preparation for eternity. Once they grasp this truth, they will begin to live differently. Rick Warren

The only time most people think about eternity is at funerals, and then it’s often shallow, sentimental thinking, based on ignorance. Most people feel it’s morbid to think about death, but actually it’s unhealthy to live in denial of death and not consider what is inevitable. The Bible says, “It's better to go to a funeral than to attend a feast; funerals remind us that we all must die.” (Eccl. 7:2 CEV) Only a fool would go through life unprepared for what we all know will eventually happen. As pastors, we need to force people to think more about eternity, not less.

But how?

Emphasize the transient nature of life on earth
The Bible is full of metaphors that teach the brief, temporary, transient nature of life on earth. Life is described as a mist, a fast runner, a breath, and a wisp of smoke. The Bible says, “For we were born but yesterday. … Our days on earth are as transient as a shadow." (Job 8:9 NLT)

Challenge your church to make the best use of their lives by reminding them of two truths: First, compared with eternity, life is extremely brief. Second, earth is only a temporary residence. You won’t be here long, so don’t get too attached to what you see here. The Bible is clear: “Those in frequent contact with the things of the world should make good use of them without becoming attached to them, for this world and all it contains will pass away." (1 Cor. 7:31 NLT)

In order to keep us from becoming too attached to earth, God allows us to feel a significant amount of discontent and dissatisfaction in life – longings that will never be fulfilled on this side of eternity. We’re not completely happy here because we’re not supposed to be! It’s not our final home; we were created for something much better.

Challenge people to live in light of eternity
Life on earth is just the dress rehearsal before the real production. All of us will spend far more time on the other side of death – in eternity – than we will here. Earth is the staging area, the preschool, the tryout for life in eternity. It is the practice workout before the actual game; the warm-up lap before the race begins. This life is preparation for the next.

Help your people comprehend that there is more to life than just here and now. Show them that life is just preparation for eternity. Once they grasp this truth, they will begin to live differently. They will start living in light of eternity, and that will color how they handle every relationship, task, and circumstance. Suddenly many activities, goals, and even problems that seemed so important will appear trivial, petty, and unworthy of their attention. The closer they live to God, the smaller everything else appears.

When God’s people live in light of eternity, values change. They use their time and money more wisely. They place a higher premium on relationships and character instead of fame or wealth or achievements or even fun. Their priorities are reordered. Keeping up with trends, fashions, and popular values just don't matter as much anymore. Paul said, “I once thought all these things were so very important, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done." (Phil. 3:7 NLT)

The most damaging aspect of contemporary living is short-term thinking. God calls us to keep the vision of eternity continually in front of our people. Rick Warren

The most damaging aspect of contemporary living is short-term thinking. God calls us to keep the vision of eternity continually in front of our people. We must remind them that there is far more to life than just here and now! Today is the visible tip of the iceberg. Eternity is all the rest you don’t see underneath the surface.

Measured against eternity, our time on earth is just a blink of an eye, but the consequences of it will last forever. The deeds of this life are the destiny of the next. C.S. Lewis observed, “All that is not eternal is eternally useless.” Years ago, a popular slogan encouraged people to live each day as “the first day of the rest of your life.” Actually, it would be wiser to live each day as if it were the last day of your life. Matthew Henry said, “It ought to be the business of every day to prepare for our final day.”

Everlasting Father.  'Never will I leave you or forsake you.'    

*Spoiler alert! I don't know the art of writing reviews without divulging toomanydetails; besides, this isn't so much a review as a response, since you only get my opinions + anecdotes and no one elses. Because movies, or any artinaction, puts me in a fever of wantingtowrite and runaway with the takeyourbreathaway moments. I'd saywatch the movie cos it's the BEST I've seen for a while… and then read this if you like... But that's only if you're fussed, ha ha.

Bar the unfortunate Titanic, which I concede was a catalyst* to kickstart her career, Kate Winslet is one of my favourite actresses as she's incredibly versatile (think: Eternal Sunshine, Finding Neverland, Quills, Iris) And it seems that, more so than most other tinseltown actresses, she carefully picks her works – and they're always daring choices, indie flicks, and unashamedly involving nudity... Almost like it's her forte, so to speak, the celebration of the unadorned and natural (unstarved!) feminine form in all its blemishes. So she is in the league of Cate Blanchett and to a lesser extent Hillary Swank and Kirsten Dunst.

Little Children was an enigmatic movie – rather like a onion, brown and sweet, but because of the many layers there's a sense to that it will bite your tongue – we laugh because things are familiar. I loved the very artfully drawn suburban tropes of the days at the pool, the females' book club (mainly older women) and the park mothers and their fantasies.

The tone of the movie, especially the scenes involving women only reminded me of Gwen Harwood's poetry which focuses on women and women's business, the gendered role of females, namely the stultifying doldrums of being a homemaker – everything and nothing happening all at once: the kettle going off, the doorbell ringing, children crying or complaining, stove boiling over with dinner to make, clothes to wash… And all that one is left with at the end of the thankless day is an overwhelming weariness, an abyss devoid of any sense of true accomplishment – despite the hopefully clean sink.
Winslet plays Sarah, who (rapidly and with startling alacrity) becomes the other woman to 'the Prom King', a stay at home father relegated (for that is the consummate sense of inferiority and failure) to 'primary caregiver' for his young son Aaron, as he has twice failed the Bar exam.

'Don't be afraid to ask… What the person who wears the pants in the relationship does.'

We find out Sarah's marriage is loveless, or at least, devoid of any sexual intimacy, as her husband has been sucked into the cyberclutches of 'Slutty Kay', a kitchen-implement-wielding porn queen… to hilarious but tragic consequences.

Thus Sarah and former college football player Brad (played by the chiseled Patrick Wilson – so not my type!) meet at the park and subsequently (though, admittedly it is slow-moving as they both valiantly maintain the illusion of innocence for a time) embark on an affair. Though strangely, that thought never crossed my mind when I was watching, because despite the comical, arbitrary and realistic yet unrealistic start to their attraction. Perhaps because it seemed so natural or understandable – oh, the invidiousness! Perhaps because it seemed unfortunate that Sarah, her daughter Lucy, Brad and his son Aaron couldn't be the perfect family unit, or that there was an irony that seeming perfection could come out of the fracturedness of existing family structures.

I loved the filming… (I wish I had taken film studies just to better appreciate angles, mis-en-scene, etc!) Despite the seemingly dark subject matter (pornography, sexual misdemeanours, infidelity) the settings and tone of the movie itself are not dark, and neither is the lighting. The close-ups on the rippling water, the glinting sun, the colours of swimsuits worked so well I could almost smell chlorine. The frenzy of the pool emptying as mothers cry out to their children upon realizing that the local pervert (who has a psychosexual disorder and has indecently exposed himself to the children) has entered. Mass, collective hysteria reminiscent of Salem/The Crucible.

I've always thought public pools carry with them an undercurrent of the sinister, though on the surface, they are a safe place for the congregation of childhood innocence. A sick-dread rises up when you watch Ronnie, 'the pervert' don flippers and snorkel and swims underwater. Pale and with close-cropped hair, he cuts an amphibious character – but nevertheless, no one is painted as the town saviour or devil. Each character has their own follies, foibles, and mistakes they have made in the past, inevitably colouring the people they become and directing the choices they make. Most desire to escape from the status quo, yet ironically, escape does not come from clean breaks nor leaving. I didn't like Brad – I thought he was far too easily distracted. Ronnie simultaneously filled me with disgust and yet an odd sympathy, especially raising the question of the care of the mentally impaired, and tradeoffs due to the the danger they pose to themselves and others.

Little Children is masterful at painting wonderfully conflicted human characters, and it made me feel the essence of what it means to be a sentient human being is just this: choice. The ability to choose, the ability to analyse or not, the rationale or desire behind one's choices and the consequent quality of life… The aftermath and the dealing with regret.

The stories of each character are interwoven with each other – Ronnie and the Larry the retired cop, Larry and Brad, the football team, Ronnie and Sarah… the list is endless. The parallelisms are slightly more subtle than the incomparable Crash but I think that's what I enjoyed about this movie too, it was thought-provoking and left much space for conjecture.

Little Children leaves many questions unanswered: was Jean the babysitter merely offended that Sarah had offered her money, or had she heard something from Lucy that hinted at an extra-marital affair, or did she merely feel Sarah was neglecting her daughter… Would Brad ever tell his wife Kathy about the affair, and understand how to express his feelings of emasculation? What does having children do to a marriage… And I'm intrigued as to how the book (by Tom Perotta, screenplay also by him) would have rendered these issues. Not sure if the voiceover worked for me – it was humorous –

'Brad showered quickly, sensing a rare opportunity to have sex with his wife'

– yet I'd still brand it a necessary evil to articulate moments of self-reflexivity that the characters had, for which the third person omniscient narrator in novels expresses less clumsily and less intrusively.

Another of my favourite cuts was the post-coital moment where Sarah, sitting, has her foot on his chest, filmed from above so you only see him lying down and her leg from the thigh downwards, and she is asking: 'How pretty is she?'

'My love is a fever' – heavily and scratchily underlined in blue ink. Maybe any movie which expresses feminine desperation and desire sits well with me (but no, not in the First Wives Club sense.) It's far more subtle than that… And yes, I do think I'm more feminist than not, but don't ask me to explain what that means.

I've been pondering why the title is 'Little Children'. Maybe because compared to adults, children are less unafraid, and more inclined to do what they want. Oh, they're afraid of climbing up the stairs in the dark and the monsters under the bed but when it comes to loving someone, they're armswideopen... And because we never stop being children to our parents, or parents to our children.

In conclusion: a brilliant and understated critique on society and what community means.

Somewhere, half-dream, perhaps –

Of sitting back to back on the grass, looking forward. Of reaching behind with her lefthand into the cracklyplasticpacket for some crisps (share won't you!) leaving salty sucked traces on her fingertips. And her righthand is splayed, smoothening down the pages of a rediscovered favourite open book or maybe a clean new one that's been a surprisingly good choice, a recommendation…

Sun and shade and an incredibly normal Saturday or Sunday afternoon. (Saturday's probably better. More of the illusion of there being weekendtime for relaxation before the need to sort out correspondence, pay bills, do laundry, fix taxes - why do today what you can put off til tomorrow! Plus mid-Sunday brings a bout of the Mondayblues, so it's best and highly rational to leave all the nasty adult things til then.  Balanced by morning church-going which ought to instil one with a healthy inspiration to diligently vacuum the floor because cleanliness is next to godliness... or something like that.)

But most of all.

A comfortable, close quiet. Something unspeakably shared. A knowing; an acquired and weathered and compromised knowledge of when to speak and when to be silent and that the things you say really are funny (because when there is love there is laughter... or failing which there is obviouslypretendlaughter which is funny too.)

I wonder where and how it is that we form our understanding of intimacy.

p.s. - no, she is not quite me - don't conflate!
p.p.s - BUT i reckon it would have to be a park that sells REALLY GOOD COFFEE. hahaha

 

One thing I ask of the LORD,
this is what I seek
that I may dwell in the house of the LORD
all the days of my life,
to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD
and to seek him in his temple.
For in the day of trouble
He will keep me safe in his dwelling;
He will hide me in the shelter of his tabernacle
And set me high upon a rock.
Then my head will be exalted
above the enemies who surround me;
at his tabernacle will I sacrifice with
shouts of joy;
I will sing and make music to the LORD.

Hear my voice when I call, O LORD;
be merciful to me and answer me,
My heart says of you, “Seek his face!”
Your face, LORD, I will seek.
Do not hide your face from me,
Do not turn your servant away in anger;
You have been my helper.
Do not reject me or forsake me,
O God my Saviour.
Though my father and mother forsake me,
The LORD will receive me.
Teach me your way, O LORD;
Lead me in a straight path
Because of my oppressors,
Do not turn me over to the desire of my
foes,
For false witnesses rise up against me,
Breathing out violence.

I am still confident of this:
I will see the goodness of the LORD
in the land of the living.
Wait for the LORD;
Be strong and take heart
And wait for the LORD.

Psalm 27

You know I believe that often God 'witholds'. Not because He does not desire to give us or even necessarily because the things we desire are bad things. But especially with things that are of a more personal nature, He witholds because it is a matter of His timing. Because He wants us to realise there is so much more of Him and His vision for the world, for the church (astheHopeoftheworld)... Because He wants us to have an expanded vision of Himself, and because He wants us to realise that even and especially these personal things (the epitome being relationships of the BG kind, ho ho) are really not just for ourselves but in the same way for a much wider purpose; to bless and minister to the church and the lost (our own walks and marriage as a picture of Christ's transforming love for the church).

The question I'd ask is: do you really pursue God's purpose for your life more, or are you pursuing rships more...  what do you think about/pray about more?  It's not about knowing your purpose in its entirety at this moment in time, because after all I don't think God reveals the whole jigsaw puzzle as if He's snatching away the curtain to dazzle us with the perfectlyfittedpieces... but rather it's like He gives us a piece at a time, and we're the ones who fit it in...  The partnership (:  But it's really about what you are actively pursuing.

And in essence, the answer of "wait" (which often is an answer that reveals itself through circumstances) often guards against us being too easily satisfied just by the things we want and think we need. Our God is not so small!

Intheprocess of realising what 'ready' means I suppose. I think this is a year... of tying it all together, and that only happens with application ie obedience.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wexWDIhgyfw 

Over all the Earth
You reign on high
Every mountain stream every sunsetsky
But my one request
Lord my only aim
Is that you reign in me again

Lord reign in me
Reign in your power
Over all my dreams
In my darkest hour
You are the Lord of all I am
So won't you reign in me again

Over every thought
Over every word
May my life reflect the beauty of my Lord
Cause you mean more to me than any Earthly thing
So won't you reign in me again

Today I sat on the lawn lawn next to concrete lawn and ate a $2.50 square slice of BBQchickenpizza. And I read my Travel & Place readings (not highly interesting) and pondered how I was ever going to write something worth reading… I'm hardly ever in the main campus and I semisortof got lost in RedmondBarry but that was because I thought my class was on the 2nd floor - which is a BIOLOGY LAB - rather than on the 6th.  There must have been some dance demonstration going on during lunchtime because I suddenly heard Enya playing.

Journal + me + rapidlydisappearingpizza in paperbag - I looked at the ants on the grass (which makes me think of Proverbs) and on the bark of the tree and then got very freaked that the buzzingbee would sting me.

And I read Psalm 139 which somehow never fails to make me feel like God's hand is around my heart.  'I am fearfully and wonderfully made' - just to take hold of the fact that we're all made in the image of our Creator and that He said we were good.  I think that's the key to reachingout, really - that's the mindset.  An insideout thing whether God transforms and renews our mind to see each person as truly beautiful and full of purpose... rather than us just trying to be superficially friendly.  Easier said than done, of course.

Anyhow I think someone must have been praying for me because I felt a quiet sense of peace.  I also read John Bevere's 'Fear of the Lord' which dear JT gave to me and it's absolutely perfect for the season (:  Interesting understanding: that there's a distinction between the identities of God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit, because even Jesus said that people would be forgiven for rejecting Him but the unforgiveable sin is to blaspheme against the Holy Spirit.  I'm still not quite sure what that means though.   

I have very very poor concentration span. E told me people can only concentrate for 45 mins. Yep, that sounds about right, cos I start to get itchy fingers and want to blogsurf when I'm in lectures and I just zone out... Even though I think I quite like my subjects (I go through a subject crisis every semester - I start off h-wording them, then growing interested, then by the dreaded s w o t v a c I just want to throwmyhandsupintheair and DIE)

I also have the bad habit of writing about my coursemates in class itself.

Something is missing...

and I think it is coffee!!! Hahaha would be life be any healthier with espressomachine + iPod?!

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. Ephesians 2:8-10

What are your dreams for the future? You have some, right? Your dreams are about what matters most to you. Ask yourself, If I could see God do anything with my life, what would it be?

You could be saying, “Well, I don’t have any dreams like that.” I think you do. Take another minute and reflect. Sometimes we don’t focus on our dreams because we’re fearful they won’t come true.

Put those objections aside and let God give you a vision for your life-something big. Something only He could orchestrate. Ephesians 2:10 explains God’s purpose for your life as: You “are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works.”

So let’s dream a little: Does that something great God has prepared for you to do relate to your career? Does it involve what happens in your home with your spouse and/or kids? Is it about you being part of what God is doing at your church? Maybe God has His sights set beyond all that. Maybe He’s thinking globally!

Of course in all this dreaming remember you can do nothing great for God by yourself. It’s nothing short of incredible to think Almighty God would stoop to work through broken and imperfect vessels like us in the first place, not to mention doing something big for His own glory. But that’s always been His strategy. Amazing!

Determine to spend some time thinking about and asking God to show you what big dream He has for you to accomplish this year and in years to come. Fight the urge to rationalize all the reasons why it can’t happen. (I’m too young/too old. This is too big of a dream. I’m not able.) Pour out your prayers in your journal or talk with a trusted friend about how you would love for God to use you.

Believe that God sovereignly orders the pieces of your life to make you a fruitful part of His plan. In this moment, things may not be exactly as you would hope them to be but gain strength from the promise of Philippians 1:6 that God continues a work in your life that He fully intends to finish.

         - James Macdonald

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