Randy Alcorn's Blog, page 13

What Excites You Most about Living on the New Earth?

We asked commenters on my Facebook page,

“But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells” (2 Peter 3:13). What excites you most about living on the New Earth?

Wow, the responses were so great. Here are a number of them, and I hope they encourage you to anticipate our eternal home:

No more heart attacks, widowhood, teenage boys having to deal with losing their Dad right before Christmas (that was me 50 years ago this December), cancer, war, Alzheimer's, sin, no more death! But better than those awesome future realities is that we will be forever in the presence of our Lord who suffered and died that we might experience those promises! 

Being able to go to places like the equivalent of Mt. Everest or the Amazon, or deep-sea diving without fear or hazards. Being able to hear the stories of all the people as they tell how they came to Christ and walked through life with Christ. Seeing the throne of God. Singing. Visiting other galaxies.

I’m most excited about being free of my sinful self. I can’t even imagine what that will be like. No wrong thoughts, emotions, motives, no more selfish desires, demands, or dreams. Truly it will be Heaven to be completely focused on Jesus and all that is right and good and pure and glorifying. Come Lord Jesus, come!!!

Seeing my God face to face…meeting the great cloud of witnesses, a long walk and talk with my late husband, seeing friends and family that have gone before, meeting my aborted children, hiking without the fear of grizzlies or bad people, my new house, no arthritis any longer. OH MY, I could go on and on. What a future we have.

I look forward to seeing Jesus! My son that I lost at 10 years old and his dad that I lost three years later. And actually, just seeing well because I have been legally blind for years!

“I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now...Come further up, come further in!”  C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle (Chronicles of Narnia, #7)

Reading all these comments is such a blessing, knowing there are so many who are in love with Him. Can’t wait to be with you all on the New Earth!

Seeing our Savior, having no more cancer, and spending eternity with loved ones! Also being able to travel to places I didn’t get to see before!

Knowing I'm exactly who and where I was created to be! The complete contentment! And the amazing health and strength to do all the things our new adventure holds!

Total peace and tranquility with Jesus and with our loved ones. Enjoying the newly restored earth, and our renewed, resurrected bodies.

To meet the Bible characters and ask endless questions about their lives. To meet people like C. S. Lewis and all the writers who have affected my life. To explore all the wonders of the New Heavens and the New Earth. To live in peace, joy, love, contentment, and eternal happiness. No pain, sickness or sorrow. To walk the golden streets…all of Heaven’s glory!!

I am looking forward to seeing God! To worshipping with the saints and angels and to walking with Jesus—looking into His face, touching His hands, and hearing His stories! And without a doubt I am looking forward to a deeper friendship than I knew on earth with my husband. I want to know what it was like for him at the time he was dying and what he felt when he woke up in Heaven—who he saw, what startled him most, and what he prayed for as he observed the saints below. An eternity of discovery!!!!

No more suffering for anyone, no more sorrow, pain, or grief. I can’t imagine living without any of these. I can’t even wrap my mind around how this would feel.

The absence of my own sin and weaknesses. I will finally be who He designed me to be!

I have experienced two samplings of unspeakable joy, so I want more of that! And I want to experience the awe of beholding Him in person. …I have gazed at my babies’ faces for hours and could never get enough of them—how much more so the Face of God! The One who made their faces! The beam of love He emits and to experience His gaze resting on me! I want to hang out there for a very, very, very long time.

No sickness, no tears…true friendships and walking and talking with Jesus…peace!

All that was sad being made glad.

Seeing Jesus, meeting so many new friends, no pain, no tears, no death, eternal adventures, seeing my dear friend again, and embracing my great grandparents on both sides.

Breathing the Resurrected Air!

Everything ♥️

To answer the question myself: first and foremost, I look forward to being with Jesus, my Lord and Savior and best friend. To be in His presence, to listen to Him and walk with Him…nothing could be better than that. Seeing God will be like seeing everything else for the first time. WOW!

Secondly, I look forward to seeing my family members and friends who have gone before me, including my dear mom, and my wife, Nanci, my closest sister in Christ. I fully expect no one besides God Himself will under­stand me better on the New Earth than Nanci, and there’s nobody whose company I’ll seek and enjoy more than hers.

Finally, I look forward to meeting other people. I’ll ask people to fill in the blanks of the great stories in Scripture and church history. I want to hear a few million new stories. I imagine we’ll relish these great stories, ask questions, laugh together, and shake our heads in amazement.

My heart explodes with happiness as I anticipate the world to come and its endless delights of closeness with Jesus, first and foremost, and the people of God and angels and creatures we have known and will one day know in a vast and beautiful new universe!

The Great Danger Is to Assume We Are All Headed for Heaven

For every American who believes they’re going to Hell, there are 120 who believe they’re going to Heaven. This optimism stands in stark contrast to Christ’s words in Matthew 7:13-14: “…wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” As C. S. Lewis wrote, “The safest road to hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”

What would keep us out of Heaven is universal: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). God is so holy that He cannot allow sin into His presence: “Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong” (Habakkuk 1:13). Because we are sinners, we cannot enter Heaven as we are. Unless our sin problem is resolved, the only place we will go is our true default destination . . . Hell.

The great danger is to assume we are headed for Heaven. Judging by what’s said at most funerals, you’d think nearly everyone’s going.

We dare not “wait and see” when it comes to what’s on the other side of death. We can know, we should know, before we die. And because we may die at any time, we need to know now—not next month or next year. “Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow…You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes” (James 4:14).

The voice that whispers, “There’s no hurry; you can always think about it later,” is not God’s voice.

Hell: Heaven’s Awful Alternative

Christ’s return will initiate a resurrection of believers for eternal life in Heaven and a resurrection of unbelievers for eternal existence in Hell (John 5:28-29). The unsaved—everyone whose name is not written in the Lamb’s Book of Life—will be judged according to the works they have done, as recorded in Heaven’s books (Revelation 20:12-15). Because those works include sin, people without Christ cannot enter the presence of a holy and just God and will be consigned to a place of everlasting destruction (Matthew 13:40-42).

Hell will not be like its stereotype found in comic strips, a giant lounge where between drinks people tell stories of their escapades on Earth. Because God is the source of all good, and Hell is the absence of God, community, fellowship, and friendship—rooted in the triune God Himself—can’t exist. Likely, each entity rules its own tiny kingdom of self, just as Jesus portrays the rich man alone in Luke 16:22-23. Misery loves company, but there will be nothing to love in Hell.

This is why Dante, in the Inferno, envisioned this sign chiseled above Hell’s gate: “Abandon every hope, you who enter.”

Hell has become “the H word,” seldom named, rarely talked about. Satan has obvious motives for fueling our denial of eternal punishment: he wants unbelievers to reject Jesus without fear, Christians to be unmotivated to share Christ, and God to receive less glory for the radical nature of Christ’s redemptive work.

God Never Sends Anyone to Hell

Hell seems disproportionate, a divine overreaction. In the words of one professor and contributor to an evangelical publication, “I consider the concept of hell as endless torment in body and mind an outrageous doctrine. . . . Surely a God who would do such a thing is more nearly like Satan than like God.”

Many imagine that it is civilized, humane, and compassionate to deny the existence of an eternal Hell, but in fact it is arrogant. For, if we understood God’s nature and ours, we would be shocked not that some people could go to Hell (where else would sinners go?), but that any would be permitted into Heaven.

In The Great Divorce, C. S. Lewis wrote, “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’ All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find.”

What Did Jesus Say about Hell?

In the Bible, Jesus says more than anyone else about Hell (Matthew 10:28; 13:40-42; Mark 9:43-44). He refers to it as a literal place and describes it in graphic terms—including raging fires and the worm that doesn’t die. Christ says the unsaved “will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 8:12). In His story of the rich man and Lazarus, Jesus taught that in Hell, the wicked suffer terribly, are fully conscious, retain their desires and memories and reasoning, long for relief, cannot be comforted, cannot leave their torment, and are bereft of hope (Luke 16:19-31). The Savior could not have painted a more bleak or graphic picture.

How long will Hell last? “They will go away to eternal punishment,” Jesus said of the unrighteous, “but the righteous to eternal life” (Matthew 25:46). Here, in the same sentence, He used the same word translated “eternal” (aionos). Thus, if Heaven will be consciously experienced forever, Hell must be consciously experienced forever.

Is It Unloving to Speak of Hell?

There are only two possible destinations after death: Heaven and Hell. Unless and until we surrender our lives to Jesus, we’re headed for Hell. If I had a choice, that is if Scripture were not so clear and conclusive, I would certainly not believe in Hell. I do not want to believe in it. But if I make what I want—or what others want—the basis for my beliefs, then I am a follower of myself and my culture, not a follower of Christ. Novelist Dorothy Sayers wrote, “The doctrine of hell …is Christ’s deliberate judgment on sin. . . . We cannot repudiate Hell without altogether repudiating Christ.”

The most loving thing we can do for our friends and our family is to warn them about the road that leads to destruction and tell them about the road that leads to life. Would we think it unloving if a doctor told us we had a potentially fatal cancer? And would the doctor not tell us if the cancer could be eradicated? Why then do we not tell unsaved people about the cancer of sin and evil and how the inevitable penalty of eternal destruction can be avoided by the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ?

If we understood Hell even the slightest bit, none of us would ever say, “Go to Hell.” It’s far too easy—it requires no change of course, no navigational adjustments. The need for Hell is the single greatest tragedy in the universe.

God loves us enough to tell us the truth—Jesus said, “I am the way…No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). All other roads lead to Hell. The high stakes involved in the choice between Heaven and Hell will cause us to appreciate Heaven in deeper ways, always praising God for His mercy that delivers us from what we deserve and grants us grace for what we don’t.

Earth: The In-Between World

Earth leads directly into Heaven or directly into Hell, affording a choice between the two. This present life is the closest Christ-followers will come to Hell and the closest unbelievers will come to Heaven.

Given the reality of our two possible destinations, shouldn’t we be willing to pay any price to avoid Hell and go to Heaven? And yet, the price has already been paid. Consider the wonder of it: Jesus determined that He would rather go to Hell on our behalf than live in Heaven without us. He so much wants us not to go to Hell that He paid a horrible price on the cross so that we wouldn’t have to.

As it stands, however, apart from Christ, our eternal future will be spent in Hell.

Jesus asks a haunting question in Mark 8:36-37: “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?”

Christ offers each of us the gift of forgiveness and eternal life—but we must appropriate it. “Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve” (Joshua 24:15).

Adapted from Randy’s book Heaven .

A Father’s Passion for Sharing about Heaven Inspires His Entire Family

A reader tagged us on Instagram in this wonderful reel about her father:

My dad wants everyone to know about Jesus, Heaven and the hope that God gave us all when He sent His son for us. Thank you, Jesus, for the blood and thank you Jesus for Heaven. Heaven truly does change everything.

 
 
 

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A post shared by Valyssa (melissa with a V) (@sunsetssistersandsweettea)

In the note featured in the video, which he left for the housekeeping crew at a lodge his family stayed at, he wrote:

These Heaven booklets are for you. The larger Heaven book was so inspiring and comforting to my wife and I in her last days battling pancreatic and lung cancer. Even though we had been Sunday School teachers for 40 years, this book really showed us what we really have to look forward to in Heaven. We know the great (4) times we’ve had for years in this lodge and place are not over with our 17 grandchildren. Great times await us in Heaven and on [the] New Earth.

I’m also looking forward to being with our other three grandchildren already there.

Our prayer for you and yours is that you know or will come to know Jesus Christ, so that you can also enjoy eternal life in Heaven and the New Earth.

We pray we will meet you there and get to know you. God bless you.

One of his other daughters wrote our ministry:

Not a day goes by that my dad goes without mentioning Randy’s Heaven book, and he has passed out (to be sure I’m not exaggerating we’ll just say over a thousand, but I’m sure more) of the Heaven booklets. My siblings and I have videos and pictures of how he has scattered these across the country, sharing the hope of Heaven with everyone he meets.

…Ever since mom’s passing in February 2022, we passed out Heaven booklets at her visitation and funeral, and my dad doesn’t leave home without them. If you pump gas in the stall next to my dad, you’re going to hear of the hope of Heaven and receive a booklet. If you are his waitress or just take his order at a fast-food restaurant, he’s going to share with you the hope we have and what we have to look forward to on the New Earth.

Thank you, Jerry, for your example of living with your mind set “on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God” (Colossians 3:1), and for sharing your rock-solid hope with so many. As an author, there’s no greater honor than to know that my books have been used by God to help readers like Jerry, and to reach people with the gospel. To God be the glory!

An Abortion Survivor Shares His Story

January 24 marked the March for Life in Washington D.C., which is held on the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling.

This story shared at the march by Josiah Presley, an abortion survivor, is powerful:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXcs8EB472g?si=J603WLkfqyA0sZjf

A commenter wrote in response on Instagram, “There are thousands of us survivors of failed abortions. I know the world would never have missed me, had I not survived, but what a much darker place it would be, without my two wonderful daughters and four amazing grandchildren. It’s not just one life that is lost during an abortion, it is generations of lives. Every life is so special and unique. God does not make mistakes!”

The Bible is clear that every child in the womb is created by God. Furthermore, Christ loves that child and proved it by becoming like him—He spent nine months in His mother’s womb. Finally, Christ died for that child, showing how precious He considers him to be.

The biblical view of children is that they are a gift from the Lord (Psalm 127:3–5). Yet society treats children more and more as liabilities. We must learn to see them as God does, and to act toward them as God commands us to act: “Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed. Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked” (Psalm 82:3–4).

In John 3:31-36, Is John the Baptist or John the Apostle Speaking?

Question from a reader:

In John 3:27-30, John the Baptist teaches his disciples about his joy being complete. However, it seems as though he is continuing his lesson in verses 31-36, but it has no quotation marks around it. (The ESV and NIV don’t; NASB does.) Many resources give credit to John the Baptist speaking here, even though there are no quotations. Why do some translations have the quotation marks, and others don’t? And if it is correct to not have them, who is speaking in those verses? Is it John the author?

Answer from Randy Alcorn:

Yes, you are correct, the translations that put the whole thing within quotation marks are interpreting this as all from John the Baptist. The translations that end the quotation marks halfway through are saying the first part (verses 27–30) is from John the Baptist, which is clearly true, and the last part (verses 31–36) is from John the apostle, which is the uncertain part. Which John was it?

Some people say it really doesn’t matter since it’s all God’s Word anyway, but I do think that we should try to figure out which human being actually said the words of God.

This article assumes it’s all John the Baptist.

Since there is no punctuation in the original Greek, no quotation marks, commas, periods, or anything else, it is truly a judgment call whether this is John the Baptist, or the apostle John. Which means you are safe saying “this was said by John”!

Different commentators argue differently. I am sort of in the middle, thinking it could go one way or the other. Certainly, the Greek text can be taken either way precisely because quotation marks are not there. Normally, it is obvious from the context. In this case, it is not obvious the way it usually is. Hence, there is no absolutely certain answer to your question that we can know in this life. When we get to Heaven, we can ask the apostle John, John the Baptist, or Jesus Himself, and then we will know!

That said, I do lean toward it all being John the Baptist, perhaps partly because I love the uniqueness of that man, and I love the idea of hearing more of the gospel from Christ's forerunner. We hear much from the apostle John in the rest of this Gospel and in his letters and Revelation. But if this is all John the Baptist, which it certainly could be, it would be a substantial addition to what we know that he said.  

A friend said to me, “I personally lean towards it being John the Baptist, primarily because if it is John the Apostle it would be a bit out of place with the rest of the book. The only times John really offers commentary (other than a clarification) is at the beginning and at the end so this would be an exception.” 

Somehow when I picture that bearded, wild-eyed prophet saying these words, it just resonates with my heart. That’s not a good argument for believing they are his words, but since I’m up in the air on it in the first place, if I were preaching the passage, I would lean toward it being the words of John the Baptist right to the end of John 3. 

How Can Enjoying Happiness in God’s Creation Draw Us to God?

Two seriously ill men occupied the same hospital room. The man next to the window was able to sit up, while the other couldn’t.

Each day the man by the window described in picturesque detail what he saw—including a lake, ducks, and children sailing model boats. This meant the world to his roommate, who had no outside view. Witnessing these sights secondhand brought him daily happiness.

Eventually the man by the window died. His saddened roommate requested a move to the bed by the window.   He couldn’t wait to enjoy all the sights his roommate had described. But as he eagerly looked outside for the first time all he saw was an old brick wall.

Perspective makes all the difference. His roommate had been able to see, in his mind’s eye, life beyond the wall. Some prisoners, surrounded by bare walls, see in their imaginations the world’s true beauty. But many “free people” are surrounded by rich beauty yet day after day, year after year, fail to see it. Who is happier?

J. R. R. Tolkien wrote in The Fellowship of the Ring: “The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.”

The better I know Jesus, the more I see Him all around me—in people, animals, places, and objects. But if I hadn’t studied His Word and reflected on His character over the years, I wouldn’t have known what to look for. A student of insects or birds can see dozens of fascinating specimens on a short walk. Another person on the same walk, not having learned to observe, can miss them altogether.

Scripture paints a picture of how we should think about God in our daily lives: we should be talking about (and to) God throughout the day, teaching ourselves and our children to see Him in everything (see Deuteronomy 6:1-7).

Two of my grandsons love football and in their younger years, would speak tirelessly of professional players. So Nanci and I entered into their world. We would name those we consider the best players and say, “Isn’t it amazing that God has given each person special gifts to use for his glory, and the rest of us get to enjoy it?” In this way, we could see God’s master craftsmanship in the beauty of life. When we would see an athlete who honors Christ, we encouraged our grandsons with his or her example. When we observed ugliness in an athlete who glorifies himself, we knew it was the Curse at work, and it’s another teaching opportunity.

Consider the brightest “stars” in the sky—which are actually the planets Venus, Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn. Unlike the true stars we see, which are far away and therefore dimmer, these planets don’t shine with their own light; they are bright only because they reflect the sun.

Likewise, the moon is a beautiful sight, but it doesn’t generate light on its own. It merely reflects it. Merely makes the reflection sound trivial, but this is actually a magnificent phenomenon. The moon was made to glorify the sun, and when it does, it shares in the sun’s glory. (If the moon were able to talk, wouldn’t we think it foolish if we heard it congratulate itself for how brightly it shines?)

So it is with all secondary sources of happiness. Things such as art, music, literature, sports, careers, and hobbies generate no light on their own. The light they bring comes from “the Father of lights” (James 1:17).

I don’t value the planets and moon less because they don’t shine by their own light. Likewise, I don’t devalue my wife, my children, my grandchildren, my coworkers, or my dog because they’re secondary to God and reflect Him. On the contrary, I value them all the more because the God who is primary has made them who and what they are, and He has endowed them with worth that makes them far more important than if they were merely random accidents with a flickering light of their own.

Happiness can be sought in thousands of places, but it can be found in only one. That source is God, who incredibly is “Christ in you” (Colossians 1:27). He is big enough to create the galaxies, yet He dwells in each of us who know Him.

Excerpted from 60 Days of Happiness. 

Watch the Full Sessions from My Eternity 101 Class for Free

Years ago, I enjoyed teaching an in-depth, 12-hour course on Heaven and the New Earth at Corban University. We had it filmed with the goal of providing a course that people can use for personal study, or in groups. (I was a bit younger, but the content has remained timeless!)

I am often asked to teach a class on Heaven in churches and schools, but time does not permit me to say yes. The good news is it’s already been done and recorded for you, and you can use it in your church, with your family, small group, Sunday school class, or any other way you wish.

John Eldredge says, “We can only hope for what we desire.” To this I would add a corollary: We can only desire what we can imagine. If you think you can’t imagine Heaven—or if you imagine it as something drab and unappealing—you can’t get excited about it. You can’t come with the childlike eagerness that God so highly values (Mark 10:15).

When you know you’re going on the trip of a lifetime, what do you do you? You prepare, you read about it and talk about it—maybe even take a class about that particular country and its customs and languages, foods, history, and features. You do what you can to get ready, and that feeds your excitement.

Well, the greatest journey, and certainly the greatest destination, any of us will ever travel to is Heaven, followed by the realm we will live in forever, the New Earth. (Since the New Earth will be literally Heaven on Earth, Scripture tells us far more about it than most people imagine!) I hope the videos of this class will help you prepare for that journey.

Consider how our misguided view of Heaven thwarts our joy and undermines our evangelism. Why would we want to share Christ so that others too can spend eternity in a boring ghostly place? Ironically, we know we should share the good news, but we aren’t convinced going to Heaven really is good news!

Yet all along God promises that we will live on a new earth in a new universe, reigning to His glory. We will behold wonders of God’s new creation beyond our wildest dreams. Forever delivered from the sin and death that once plagued us and our relationships, we will worship and work and rest and serve and laugh and feast and celebrate to God’s glory and our good.

Here’s a clip from the class, about how having a biblical view of Heaven can help us reach people with the gospel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_xXW-qfVPU?si=jxQkju878Aioerkx

And here’s the 55-minute video of session one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ui3EUgqUdI?si=gTJV7ZrcJqX81Y8U

I invite you to watch sessions 1 to 12 for free here. (EPM also offers free class resources, including a study guide with leader’s guide and an inductive study. And for those would prefer to watch the class on DVD, we offer it in our store.)

A viewer of the class sent our ministry these kind words: “My son passed to glory last year. Your video Eternity 101 got me through almost impossible days.”

Another one wrote, “I just wanted to let you know that my church youth group is watching your Eternity 101 DVD series for our youth Bible studies. I love it, and the rest of the group is thoroughly enjoying it as well. It's amazing how our view of Heaven can change how we live on earth.”

And here’s one more: “Our Bible study group just finished Eternity 101, and it was awesome! I've been a Bible believing Christian for years, and I was surprised at how many misconceptions I've had about Heaven.”

May studying about the life to come bring you great peace, happiness, and purpose!

When Grief Leaves You Feeling Hopeless and Purposeless

Our ministry sometimes hears from those who are grieving and feel completely hopeless and purposeless in life. There’s no doubt that grieving a loved one’s death is a long, often lonely, always painful process. But I encourage those of you who might feel you now have no purpose: don’t throw away the calling God has for you to serve Him here until your time is done and He takes you home.

(Let me preface this blog by saying: if you have even fleeting thoughts of suicide, reach out right away for biblical perspective and counseling. Go to your friends and your pastor. Make an appointment with your physician. Rely on the Holy Spirit and the body of Christ, the local church. Contact www.christiansncrisis.com, https://samaritanshope.org, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255, or text 741741 for crisis texting.)

I have advised friends who are struggling with feeling depressed to take a break from reading Christian books that are duty-driven, as the “do more” approach can lay unnecessary guilt on those who are vulnerable. Of course, books that are convicting and more demanding are exactly what some readers need! But not what the person already feeling hopeless needs. Start by reading books on God’s character such as A. W. Tozer's The Knowledge of the Holy and Dane Ortlund's Gentle and Lowly. I also recommend these three books on grace, each different than the other: Phil Yancey’s What’s So Amazing About Grace?, Max Lucado’s Grace: More Than We Deserve, Greater Than We Imagine, and Chuck Swindoll’s The Grace Awakening. (Check out this list of podcasts and books for more recommendations.)

Take walks where you can look at God's creation. Two of the Great Physician’s effective therapeutic treatments are sun and fresh air. Make time outdoors part of your daily plan. It could be working in the garden or a daily walk, but either way, get out and do something. It doesn’t have to be a cloudless day to benefit from sunlight or fresh air.

Whether or not you’ve ever had a pet, especially if you live alone, I highly recommend you consider getting one. If you want to try one out, ask to borrow a friend’s dog for a week and see what you think. They’re not for everyone, but for many people, their very best grief therapy can be found in a pet.  You do not have to be an animal lover. (But beware, because soon you likely will be.)

If you have a dog or cat or some pet to take care of, you will have a productive purpose, even if it’s on a small scale. I know that since Nanci went home to Jesus almost three years ago now, my little dog Gracie has been an incredible comfort and encouragement to me. She causes me to laugh and keeps me active.

In order to break out of that hopelessness, you need to make some changes to your life. Talk to your pastor, talk to a good Christian counselor, go to a grief recovery group. And seriously, look at getting a pet to be your companion and for you to take care of. God is not done with you yet. He has a purpose for you still being in this world. You need to look for that purpose, you need to find that purpose, and you need to hang on and change your routines to make them healthier, and God will bless you if you do that.

Don’t think just in terms of your own preferences; think of God’s calling to you and the purpose He still has for you even if you can’t see it. Get more involved in church, in a Bible study or in a small group. The small group of men that I’m in is an important part of my weekly routine.

Ask friends and family what they think your gifts and strengths are and how God might use you in ministry to others. When you have lost your sense of identity and hope, it’s a great time to ask yourself, “Who am I now?” God knows. Ask Him. (See also Rediscovering Your God-Given Identity after Loss.)

You may have to wrestle with it a bit and figure out what new directions God might have for you. No rush. On the other hand, feel free to begin making plans, perhaps to see places and visit people you haven’t had a chance to before. Or see old friends and go to old places.

Good grief recognizes the reality of the loss and understands that you’re not the same person before the cause of grief happened. But it also recognizes, slowly but surely, that life does indeed go on, and needs to, and it can even keep getting better as progress is made. It also realizes the reality of the sad dance of up and down, back-and-forth, two steps forward, one step back, then one step forward, two steps back. “For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven…A time to cry and a time to laugh…A time to grieve and a time to dance” (Ecclesiastes 3:1,4, NLT).

Remember, you are more than your loss. More than your pain. More than your grief. So don’t let grief and pain become your idols. Instead, let them point you to the only One worthy of worship.  

What If You Only Had One Week to Live?

I asked the men in my weekly small group, "If you knew today you had only one week to live, what would you do?” We came up with a number of answers and then asked ourselves why we wouldn't do those things soon—this week or this month or at the next family gathering—since none of us knows when we will die.

This is not morbid; it is just facing head-on what Scripture says—that our days are numbered. (A vivid reminder of this for me is seeing Nanci’s gravestone that has my date of birth only, then a dash. It awaits my date of death.) You are not going to live a moment shorter because you pause to think about death. You are not going to live a moment longer if you refuse to stop and think about death.

The question is, how prepared for death will you be if you have given minimal thought to it? How prepared for what lies beyond this life might you become if you gave it substantial thought, guided by God’s Word and His Spirit? As Matthew Henry said, “It ought to be the business of every day to prepare for our last day.”

“Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12). Our lives on earth are a dot. It begins, it ends, it’s brief. But from that dot extends a line that goes out into eternity and never ends. If we’re wise, we’ll live not for the dot but for the line.

So I encourage you to ask yourself that same question: “If I died exactly one week from now, what would I wish I would have done?” Then, start doing those things. If you have something you’ll wish you had said to your loved one before they unexpectedly died, may I suggest that you say it to them today? I don’t mean tomorrow, next week, next month, or next year—I mean today. Hopefully both you and that loved one will still be around for a while. But the time will come when they won’t be around, or you won’t be around—and in fact, at some point neither of you will be around, so be realistic. Use your time wisely now to speak into the lives of those around you.

Let’s live each day with an awareness that one of these days will be our last day in this world under the curse. That’s partly good news because no longer living under pain and suffering and grief will be a good thing. But while we’re still here this is still a world of unparalleled opportunity, let’s use it well!

God Is Just as Good When He Doesn’t Do What We Want

There is a great phrase many say: “God is good.“ That is certainly true and an appropriate thing to proclaim. However, many of us say it routinely only when life goes our way. “Traffic was easy today, I made all the lights, and I wasn’t late for work or class—God is good!” When we hear that God has healed someone, inevitably someone says, “God is good.“ True enough.

But when God chose not to answer our prayers for my wife Nanci‘s healing after 4 1/2 years of almost never missing our evening prayer time, does that mean God was, in our case, not good? Of course not. God is not only good when He does what we want, but also when He doesn’t do what we want. This is when people who lose their faith are right in losing it, because they are losing a faith that is not a true biblical faith.

As long as we hold on to vestiges of prosperity theology (which teaches that God will bless with material abundance and good health those who obey Him and lay claim to His promises), we set ourselves up to lose our faith, and perhaps ultimately to walk away from God. Because if God has to do what we want in order for us to be happy, then He is not our master but our servant.

I believe prosperity theology is from the pit of Hell. It confuses and misleads people about God and what He has and has not promised. When my friend Greg was dying when I was 16 years old and he was 18, I thought I knew beyond any shadow of doubt that God would heal Him. I claimed the reality of that healing, fully expecting it. When he died, I learned the painful lesson that we do not necessarily get our way when we pray.

It doesn’t mean God does not answer prayer; it doesn’t mean that God is not honored by our prayers. It certainly does mean that we need to be careful when we claim Christ has promised things, because when we proclaim false promises, we misrepresent Him, undermine His truths, and distort the reality of how He loves His people.

Vaneetha Rendall Risner writes:

Why does God answer yes to some prayers and no to others?

Why does God miraculously heal some people and not others?

Why does disaster strike one city and not another?

Can we simply draw straight lines between our requests and God’s answers?

Years ago my infant son Paul died unexpectedly and an acquaintance said when he learned of our loss, “Don’t take this wrong, but we prayed for all of our children before they were born. And they were all born healthy.” We had no words.

In Acts 12, James was killed and Peter rescued and I wondered why God let James die and Peter live. Did God love Peter more than James? Was James’s life less important? Were people not praying for James?

Looking at the fuller counsel of the Bible, we know God has plans that we do not understand. Living or dying, being spared or being tortured, being delivered in this life or the next is not an indicator of God’s love for us or the measure of our faith. Nothing can separate us from God’s love, and our future is determined by what he knows is best for us.

Still, prosperity gospel proponents have told me that if I had prayed in faith, my body would have been healed, my son would have been spared, and my marriage would have been restored. It was all up to me. If I just had the faith, I would have had a better outcome. Their words have left me bruised and disillusioned, but that theology is not the gospel. God’s response to our prayers is not dependent upon our worthiness but rather rests on his great mercy.

If you are in Christ, God is completely for you. Your struggles are not because you didn’t pray the right way, or because you didn’t pray enough, or because you have weak faith or insufficient intercessors. It is because God is using your suffering in ways that you may not understand now, but one day you will. One day you will see how God used your affliction to prepare you for an incomparable weight of glory. This is the gospel. And it holds for all who love Christ.

Job 2:10 says, “Should we receive good from God and not trouble?” If we believe God is distant and not involved in the details of our lives—or at least not the bad details of our lives, but only the good ones—or if we come to believe, contrary to His Word, that God lacks power, we believe fundamental falsehoods. Likewise, if we believe He lacks knowledge and our loved one died simply because of someone’s negligence and therefore their death was not the will of God, then we are in a bad place. The grief process must include eventually accepting what has happened. Holding false beliefs about God will prevent us from that acceptance.

We must embrace both God’s love AND His sovereignty—not one instead of the other. If you only embrace His love, you will be confused and hurt when life gets hard. If you only embrace His sovereignty, you will resign yourself to thinking your life is driven by a cruel, impersonal, and distant God, and you’ll forget His plan to work in your best interests. “Yahweh is good to all, and His compassions are over all His works” (Psalm 145:9, LSB).