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Today's Lenten Devotion
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Life: Get a Clue
Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.
-- Daniel 12:2
In order to figure out what to write about this passage other than "some will go to heaven and some will go to hell," I really had to think on it for a while. I read the passage over and over then read through the whole chapter (12) over and over. I wondered why I agreed to do this devotion in the first place.
I figured out that Daniel was given a secret, in fact, an astounding secret. It was the "411" from God on the resurrection, final judgment and the afterlife. After verse 2 in "The Message" it goes on to say,
... the populace will be washed clean and made like new. But the wicked will just keep on being wicked without a clue about what is happening. Those who live wisely and well will understand what’s going on.
When you strive to live a life with God, it is not always easy, but happy are those who persevere. (Daniel 12:12)
I recently had to help my daughter answer a question as homework based on the book, Tuck Everlasting. The question was "Would you want to live forever?" The story goes that a teen-aged girl, Winnie Foster, learns the truth about a family "The Tucks" who have found a source of water that gives the drinker eternal life. Of course, there is one man who is out to exploit the water source to make a quick buck and to, he himself, drink.
As Winnie gets to know the Tucks she sees that the chance at everlasting life comes with a huge price. Jesse Tuck who has her heart’s interest wants Winnie to drink of the water to be with him forever. The brother of Jesse has had the love of a wife and family whom he saw die of old age. He lived on. And on.
The conclusion my daughter has come to is that death is a part of life. We "sleep in the dust of the earth" until that final judgment We cannot cheat at life. We are washed clean and made like new if we live our lives with God first. As the Tucks knew, and Winnie, and my daughter figured out, if you live wisely and well you will understand what’s going on. People who don’t turn to God for everlasting life, like the Tucks, or worse, the man that exploits the water to deceive others into cheating life too, will be in eternal shame. "The wicked will just keep on being wicked without a clue."
Like I said when I began, I didn’t have a clue what I could get out of this passage. It has come to me that everlasting life is only good spent with God. God and the love that God shares with us to pass on to others through the Holy Spirit.
The following prayer comes straight from The Book of Common Prayer under the heading "For Guidance".
O God, by whom the meek are guided in judgment, and light riseth up in the darkness for the godly: Grant us, in all our doubts and uncertainties, the grace to ask what thou wouldest have us to do, that the Spirit of wisdom may save us from all false choices, and that in thy light we may see light, and in thy straight path may not stumble; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Marge J. Voigt
famvoigt@verizon.net
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