Left Behind

We were discussing a tragedy and someone made the comment “ death doesn’t happen to you but to those that you leave behind”. At first I wasn’t sure but as I thought about it later I found to some degree this comment was right. Once we die, we have embarked on our Eternal Journey. We understand the error of our ways, where we messed up and that the justice of God is true and perfect. It means therefore that the consequences of our choices are also understood and accepted as being correct. This we glean from the story of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31) The rich man knew that he was in the place that he should have been as a result of the way he had lived his life on earth. Lazarus, while not stated in the story has to have been a faithful servant and goes to Heaven. God’s justice was perfect.

For those of us that are left behind however, we have to live with those constant questions of why, what and how. Why did this happen? Why now? What really happened? What are we going to do now? What can we do to stop this happening again? What didn’t we do that we should have done? How are we going to manage? How do we keep going? The questions are endless and often there are no simple answers, if any at all.

No matter how close or how far away we are, God promises that if we ask Him, He will give us the strength to carry on. Paul writes in Philippians 4:13 “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” We will be able to say the same when we call on the name of Christ.