Destiny

A New York Times article called it “The Most Important Conversation to Have Before You Die.” The article opens by stating:

“Instead of talking about politics around the Thanksgiving table this year, consider a less fraught topic: death. It’s something few of us want to think about, but death is a fact of life that we will all encounter, often first as a caregiver and then, inevitably, when we reach our own.”

According to the article, what is the most important conversation to have before you die? It’s not about your eternal destiny. It’s not about your relationship with God or how to face final judgment. Instead, “discussing what medical care you want to receive at the end of your life is one of the most loving things you can do for your family.” The article notes, “While death can be a scary subject to broach, you may be surprised by how you feel after.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

Death, Preparation for – Granted this is an important conversation to have before you die, but Christians believe that there are conversations that are far more important than that topic. How many of us will leave our comfort zone and talk to family members about eternity and what preparation should be made to face God? By approaching these discussions with love, humility, and a genuine concern for their spiritual well-being, we can plant seeds that may lead to life-changing decisions about faith and salvation.

A study explaining why mouse hairs turn gray made global headlines. Not because the little critters are in desperate need of a makeover; but knowing the “why” in mice could lead to a cure for graying locks in humans. Nowadays, everyone seems to be chasing after youth, either to keep it, find it, or just remember it.

People in the ancient world often turned to lotions and potions that promised to give at least the appearance of eternal youth. Roman recipes for banishing wrinkles included ingredients from donkey’s milk, swan’s fat, and bean paste to frankincense and myrrh.

Some ancient elixirs were highly toxic. China’s first emperor Qin Shi Huang, who lived in the Third Century B.C., is believed to have died from mercury poisoning after drinking elixirs meant to make him immortal. In 16th-century France, Diane de Poitiers, the mistress of King Henry II, was famous for looking the same age as her lover despite being 20 years older. A study of Diane’s remains found that her hair contained extremely high levels of gold, likely due to daily sips of a youth-potion containing gold chloride, diethyl ether, and mercury. The toxic combination would have destroyed her internal organs.

Many people in our world today are still trying to find ways to look younger forever.

China’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, is famous for his terracotta warriors, thousands of statues that display the magnificent power he achieved. He is famous for uniting China but is less well known for his quest for immortality. He sent his subjects out to discover immortality, and tried many magical potions and substances. In his quest to cheat death, he consumed mercury, which was said to grant eternal life. This is very likely what killed him.

Ironically, the First Emperor’s determination to cheat death may have hastened his demise at around 50 years of age. He regarded mercury as a special substance with life-enhancing properties, and it appears that others may have prescribed this as an ingredient in his medicines or potions. He suddenly fell ill and died on one of numerous tours of his empire.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Those who seek to gain the whole world will lose their soul. No one can cheat death, and trying to do so will often lead to death itself.

In a fictional YouTube video, the main character, Eric, is walking his dog Nova. The dog sees a rabbit, runs after it, pulling the leash from Eric's hand. The dog is soon lost and Eric spends several days frantically searching for Nova. After a week Eric is devastated. He is upset about the bad luck of a rabbit jumping out just at the wrong time and leading Nova on a wild chase.

After another week a woman, Vanessa, rings Eric's doorbell with Nova in tow. After the emotional reunion with Nova, Eric slowly gets to know Vanessa and they fall in love. Eric realizes how lucky they were that Vanessa was at the right place at the right time to find Nova.

Two months later as Eric is driving to visit Vanessa, he is T-boned by a negligent driver. He suffers a severe head injury and tests are immediately done at the hospital. He is furious that his life could be ruined by this random accident when he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The next day the doctor tells him of the results of the CT scan. There is a tumor growing in his brain. It had nothing to do with the accident, from which Eric would make a full recovery. The tumor was discovered because of the accident and the CT scan. It was in its early stages, and could effectively be treated. Normally the tumor is discovered when there are symptoms, when it is almost always too late. The doctor tells him the car accident saved his life.

A week later Eric has successful brain surgery. Days later Eric is at home, recovering, with Vanessa. To get some fresh air he takes Nova out for a walk.

You can watch this 6 min. video here.

Possible Preaching Angle:

This short story video is quite compelling and an excellent illustration for Bible verses like “All things work together....” (Rom. 8:28), facing trials (Jam.1:2-4) and restoration after suffering (1 Pet. 5:10). Christians are often perplexed by the things happening to them but God intends that good should come out of evil. (Gen 50:20)

Beginning in 2019, the entire globe became immersed in the COVID-19 pandemic that has so massively disrupted our daily routines. And there is an understandable obsession with physical cleanliness, which is keeping pace with the spread of the virus itself. Everywhere we look are signs demanding that we regularly wash our hands and refrain from touching our faces. Personal hygiene has become paramount.

In the early stages of the pandemic, we heard of certain individuals who were hoarding a wide variety of hand cleansers and then selling them at exorbitant prices. At offices, stores, and public places are numerous containers of disinfectant wipes that we are expected to apply generously to all surfaces and objects. The disinfectant claims to kill cold and flu viruses and virtually all bacteria within fifteen seconds.

Needless to say, the concern in the wake of COVID-19 is physi­cal health. External cleanliness to guard us against infection is the goal. It is common sense to take steps to protect ourselves from such outbreaks of disease. But to put this crisis in an eternal perspective, the worst that COVID-19 can do is take your physical life. Any form of physical infection from a lethal virus can do only so much.

But there is a worse virus circulating in our world which is 100 percent fatal. It is the virus of sin, contracted from spiritual rebellion and its eternal consequences for people is far more severe. It is staggering to think that so many people obsess over their physical welfare but give little or no thought to the health of their soul.

“O Lord, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am! Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths, and my lifetime is as nothing before you. Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath! Selah” (Ps. 39:4-5).

In 2013, Micah Redding founded the Christian Transhumanist Association, a group bringing faith and ethics into transhumanist conversations. Transhumanists believe that human capacities can be enhanced by science and technology.

Some are anti-aging researchers applying biomedicine to improve humanity. Aubrey de Grey studies preventative maintenance for the human body and believes the first human to live to 1,000 has already been born. Others look to computing advances; futurist Ray Kurzweil has predicted that by 2045 artificial intelligence will surpass human intelligence, leading to “the singularity,” where everyone’s brain will be connected to “the cloud.”

These predictions may seem outlandish, but recent breakthroughs in the science of aging do make modest, if not radical, life extension a real possibility. Various studies on lab animals have extended lifespan by up to 30 percent.

At the same time, the church must continue to proclaim the basic reality of our existence, as summarized in the Ash Wednesday call, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you will return.” Life is a gift.

Philosopher Diogenes Allen made the distinction between extended life and eternal life. Extended life is what we are trying to make for ourselves through scientific solutions. Eternal life, on the other hand, is “that which we can experience and have to a degree in this life but can have fully only after death.” Eternal life, in other words, is received.

To the extent that we receive this eternal, abundant life, Christians offer it to others—through loving our neighbors and building communities of mutual care and hospitality. This is our ultimate goal. Though caring for bodies may be part of this process, it is not everything.

There's a Signpost Forest just outside of Watson Lake, Yukon. It was started in 1942 when a soldier named Carl K. Lindley was injured while working on the Alcan Highway. He was taken to the Army air station in Watson Lake to recuperate.

In those days a simple sign post pointed out the distances to various points along the highway. One of the signposts was damaged by a bulldozer. Lindley was ordered to repair the sign, and decided to personalize the job by adding a sign pointing towards his home town, Danville, Illinois, and giving the distance to it. Several other people added directions to their home towns, and the idea has been snowballing ever since.

Since those early days, tourists continued the tradition, and there are currently ( as of 2021) 80,000 signs from around the world. Now the Signpost Forest takes up a couple of acres, with huge new panels being constantly added, snaking through the trees. There are street signs, welcome signs, signatures on dinner plates, and license plates from around the world.

We all long for home, especially our heavenly home. Throughout life we encounter signposts that point us to our home in heaven. The blessings given to us by our heavenly Father such as family, friends, worship music, the laughter of a child, are all signposts that point toward home.

On May 25, 1979, Denis Waitley was desperately trying to catch a flight from Chicago to Los Angeles. When he arrived at his gate, they had just closed the jetway. Denis begged them to let him on that airplane. No luck! Out of breath and out of patience, he made his way to the ticket counter to register a complaint and rebook his travel. While he was waiting in line, an announcement came over the airport intercom. AA Flight 191 to Los Angeles had crashed upon takeoff.

The engine on the left wing of that DC-10 sepa­rated from the airplane right after takeoff. The unbalanced aerodynam­ics caused the plane to roll, a roll from which it could not recover. All 271 people on board died in the crash. It was the deadliest aviation accident in United States history.

That near-death experience had a life-altering impact on Denis Waitley. Had he been on time, it would have been the last day of his life. Needless to say, he never registered his complaint. In fact, he never re­turned his ticket for Flight 191. He took his paper ticket and put it in a visible place in his office. On difficult days, the days when he felt like throwing in the towel, all it took was one glance at that ticket to regain perspective. That ticket was a constant reminder that every day is a gift.

Author Adam Gollner, details the efforts to remedy the problem of death. At the cutting edge of this effort, we find some of the world's richest individuals. Gollner writes, "There’s something about amassing more money than you can ever possibly use that naturally makes you hunger for ways to stay alive longer—if not forever."

For example, Larry Ellison is the CEO of Oracle Corporation and the sixth-richest person in the world. Ellison contributes more than $40 million per year to the cause. It is said that he views death as just another kind of corporate opponent he can outfox. Ellison has set up a foundation dedicated to ending mortality, or at least to “understanding lifespan development processes and age-related diseases and disabilities.”

Ellison says, “Death makes me very angry. It doesn’t make any sense to me. Death has never made any sense to me. How can a person be there and then just vanish; just not be there?”

Gollner, concludes: "Death may not make any sense, but perhaps it can be defeated?"

Possible Preaching Angle:

Death has been defeated, but not through wealth and human innovation.

In the classic Russian novel Eugene Onegin, a jaded aristocrat Onegin, meets an innocent young girl in the countryside. The girl, Tatyana, writes him a letter, offering him her love. Onegin does not reply. When they meet again, he turns her down: the letter was touching, he tells her, but he would soon grow bored of marriage to her. Years later, Onegin enters a St. Petersburg party and sees a stunningly beautiful woman. It is Tatyana. But she is now married. Onegin falls in love with her. He tries desperately to win her back. But Tatyana refuses him. Once, the door was open: she offered him her love. Now it is shut.

For many of us, it is easy to reject Jesus now. Like Tatyana's letter to Onegin, his offer is touching. But we believe we will be happier without such a commitment. We worry he will cramp our style, so we move on with life and leave him in the spiritual countryside. One day, the Bible warns, we will see Jesus in all his glory, our eyes painfully open to his majesty. We will know in that moment that all our greatest treasures were nothing compared with him, and we will bitterly regret that decision. But it will be no more unfair than Tatyana's rejection of Onegin. If we accept Jesus now, we will live with him forever in a fullness of life we cannot imagine. If we reject him, he will one day reject us, and we will be eternally devastated. The choice is ours.

In 1943, a young pastor was offered the opportunity to take over a popular Gospel Radio program called Songs in the Night. Since the cost of keeping the program on air was rather high, the pastor, who had a large vision to reach souls with the gospel, told his board that he would be willing to forgo part of his salary to help defray the costs involved. The suggestion was eventually accepted by the board.

The young pastor then approached a well-known Gospel singer, requesting him to sing and lead the choir on the program. After initially trying to back out, the singer eventually agreed to help out. That decision would change the course of his life and ministry forever! He later said, “It was the beginning – the humble beginning – of an unbelievable journey…It was exciting to be a part of something wonderful unfolding”.

The Gospel singer was George Beverly Shea and the young pastor’s name was Billy Graham.

Possible Preaching Angles: Similarly, when we take decisions that seek to glorify God, He will lead us to opportunities and open doors that only He can bring about. The God- honoring decisions we take will surely determine our destiny.

Samuel Kempf was in Spain representing New Zealand in the Fistballing World Championship when he took a break to ride a rollercoaster. While he was on the ride, he showed off his considerable coordination and fist skills.

During the beginning of the ride, Kempf noticed that another man had dropped his phone on the floor of his car. Because of the ride’s safety restraints, he was unable to pick it up. While pointing out the man’s predicament, Kempf joked to his brother and others around him that they should “get ready to catch.” Sure enough, that’s exactly what he did.

Kempf said, “The ride started and I totally forgot about it because I was just in the moment. And then after the first drop we rose up and I just saw the phone drift across my view, so I reached out and managed to catch it.”

After the ride, Kempf reached out to give the grateful man his phone back, and was surprised to find that the ride’s reaction video apparatus had recorded his miraculous catch. As a token of gratitude, the man purchased the video memento.

Potential Preaching Angles: Even things that seem like blind luck are within God's control, because God is sovereign and all-powerful and rules of all things and people. That said, both the righteous and the unrighteous suffer setbacks and triumphs alike. God's ways are not always completely understandable to mortals like ourselves.

A Korean War veteran by the name of Laurel Hunsinger told friends and family that, "When I worked on the flight line in Korea and flew combat missions, there was a post set in the ground that everyone had to walk past. Someone had carved into the post these words: “You always have two chances.” When I asked what that meant, I was told that when you fly a combat mission, you have two chances: You'll make it back to the base or you'll be shot down. If you are shot down, you have two chances: You'll survive the crash or you won't. If you survive the crash, you have two chances: You'll evade the enemy or you'll be captured. If you are captured, you have two chances: You'll live through being a prisoner or you won't. If you die as a prisoner, well, you still have two chances.

(In 1953, Laurel's plane was shot down 15 miles inside North Korea. Though severely injured, the entire crew survived and was rescued. Laurel died January 6, 2018 and is buried in Little River, KS).

Possible Preaching Angle:

Life might seem like a series of events controlled only by random chance (Ecclesiastes 9:11 “time and chance happen to them all”). But for the believer there is the absolute certainty that God is at work behind the scenes of our lives to bring about his perfect will (Jeremiah 29:11, Ephesians 1:9-11) for our good (Romans 8:28).

Max Tegmark, an MIT professor and co-founder of The Future of Life Institute, looks forward to what he calls Life 3.0. Here's how he outlines his three stages of human development:

Life 1.0: Our biological origins
Life 2.0: Humanity develops culture and early technology
Life 3.0: The merging of the human body with artificial intelligence, with the potential for almost unimaginable power.

Tegmark writes that the human race is in need of an upgrade:

Yet despite the most powerful technologies we have today, all life forms we know of remain fundamentally limited by their biological hardware. None can live for a million years, memorize all of Wikipedia, understand all known science, or enjoy spaceflight without a spacecraft. None can transform our largely lifeless cosmos into a diverse biosphere that will flourish for billions or trillions of years, enabling our universe to finally fulfill its potential and wake up fully. All this requires life to undergo a final upgrade to Life 3.0, which can design not only its software but also its hardware. In other words, Life 3.0 is the master of its own destiny, finally fully free from its evolutionary shackles.

Possible Preaching Angles: The Bible also claims that the human races is in need of an upgrade. But it will not come through our effort or ingenuity. We need the spiritual upgrade promised in Jesus Christ. That is the true "Life 3.0" that we need.

In the early 80s, an image campaign began in the city of Atlanta with the hopes of encouraging Atlantans to see their city with pride and hope—despite some of its darker issues of race relations, violence, poverty, and unemployment. The jingle was endearing, if cheesy, chirping birds in the background and all: There's a feeling in the air, that you can't get anywhere … except in Georgia. I taste a thousand yesterdays and I still love the magic ways of Atlanta.

All of it was meant to inspire nostalgia, loyalty, and camaraderie—and to counter all the city's negative images. Those who remember it speak fondly of the "Hello Atlanta!" song's ability to highlight Atlanta's unique brand of urbanism and the pride.

Makes no difference where I go, you're the best hometown I know. Hello, Atlanta. Hello, Georgia. We love you on 11 Alive!

The song served as something of an anthem for the city, so much so that Ira Glass featured it on his program This American Life. He interviewed people who remembered the song. And then he completely burst their unique sense of city-pride by playing for them the exact same song and lyrics with "Milwaukee" or "Calgary" substituted out in chorus and pictures. As it turned out, this "image campaign" was a syndicated campaign that took place in 167 different cities worldwide. There's a feeling in the air, that you can't get anywhere, except … fill in the blank.

The Bible does not give us an image campaign about God's good news. It is not meant to play on a sense of nostalgia for generic people and places. The promise of the gospel is for particular people in particular places. And this good news can be for you today.

Tony Liciardello was baseball's greatest scout, having signed fifty-two youngsters (including two Hall of Famers) who would rise through the minor league ranks and eventually play Major League Baseball. This number of signees making it to "the big leagues" ranks higher than any other scout. Amazingly, Lucadello's success came despite the fact that he covered the territory of Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan, not exactly the haven of California, Florida, or Texas where the weather allows for year-round play—with better players and more opportunities to observe them.

Lucadello's scouting exploits have been chronicled by Mark Winegardner in Prophet of the Sandlots. Winegardner spent several summers observing Lucadello, a loveable curmudgeon who not only spurned the typical tools of his trade, the radar gun and stopwatch, but also roamed the perimeter of baseball fields instead of sitting behind home plate like most other scouts.

So how did he do it? According to Lucadello, there are four kinds of scouts: Five percent are poor scouts (who seldom plan), five percent are pickers (who just spot weaknesses), eighty-five percent are performance scouts (who look solely based on how players do—against amateur competition), but Lucadello was that rare breed of projector scout. He looked for how coachable a kid was, how a hitch in a swing or a throwing quirk might be corrected. He saw years "down the road" to envision, under the tutelage of better coaching and against stiffer competition, how a player would play. He used rose-colored-glasses looking to see the potential in talent, rather than just the current-state talent.

Possible Preaching Angles: In the same way, Jesus, the ultimate "scout," can see his redeemed children years down the road.

In an interview with Esquire magazine, film producer and director J.J. Abrams (Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Lost) shared that his biggest influence as a child was his maternal grandfather, Harry Kelvin. Kelvin owned an electronics business where Abrams remembers his grandfather (in Abrams' words) "would take apart radios and telephones, all kinds of electronics, and explain why and how they worked. In a way, when I was a little kid, he was more of a father figure than my father; like most dads of that era, mine was always busy working."

Relatives said that J. J. was the son his grandpa never had. They would go on adventure walks together, walking around the neighborhood and making up stories. Esquire noted, "When you think about it, storytelling is a lot like electronics—it's all about how you take things apart and why each piece is necessary and where it fits in. The same is true of magic and illusion. That's what filmmaking is all about."

Kelvin also took Abrams on the Universal Studios tour. Abrams was seven or eight years old. "It was this aha moment for me," he says. "I saw how movies used illusion in this grand way. They talked about technology in a way that was fascinating. The use of cameras and special effects and different techniques—it just felt like the answer to a question I didn't even know I was asking. Suddenly I realized: This is the thing I want to do."

In 1905 Albert Einstein stunned the world with his revolutionary equation, E = mc2. Einstein wrote hundreds of papers over the course of his career. But this provocative equation, printed in one of his Annus Mirabilis papers, wasn't something he just stumbled upon by chance. It was the culmination of years of research, an insatiable curiosity about the universe, and a deep love of science.

When Einstein was a small boy, his father gave him a compass. Albert was mesmerized by the power that seemed to emanate from within the magnetic pull of the compass. He would write years later, "I can still remember … that this experience made a deep and lasting impression on me. Something deeply hidden had to be behind things." As a teenager, the intrigue and wonder of physics crept into Albert's dreams. One night, he dreamed he was sledding down a hill faster and faster, until he approached the speed of light. The stars radiated a broad spectrum of colors. He was entranced. When he awoke, he knew he had to understand the dream. In, later years he said that his entire scientific career was a meditation on that dream.

Albert Einstein didn't understand the dream he had when he was thirteen, but something deep inside him kept pondering this dream his entire life. He may not have set tangible goals for himself to shoot for, but each failed experiment, each new discovery was one step closer to understanding the speed of light. Each science class and professorship he took was moving him closer toward his destiny.

Possible Preaching Angles: (1) Dreams; Vocation; Calling—What is the dream that God has put in your heart? (2) Sanctification; Spiritual growth—God has a dream for us: to make us more like Christ? With each "failed experiment and each new discovery" we are getting one step closer to that dream and goal.

Did you know that the places you visit on vacation says a lot about your personality? According to a study in the Journal of Research in Personality, the researchers found that "extraverts prefer the beach to the mountains, while introverts prefer the opposite." Shigehiro Oishi, one of the researchers, developed his thesis from the idea of "person-environment fit"—the idea that "people actively select certain surroundings to fulfill their individual values and desires." On a much larger scale the study found, "The more mountainous a state, the more introverted its population tended to be." The reason: mountains are seen as being a place of seclusion. The story concludes with a powerful statement, "… the study is a powerful reminder of how the landscapes around us match the landscapes within us."

Possible Preaching Angle:

How much more should a Christian's destination reveal who we are as Christians? Our ultimate destination is heaven, are we living as if that is our ultimate landscape? Are our lifestyles and personalities being formed by the future reality?

NYU professor Adam Alter has observed the power names have to shape destiny. The technical name is "nominative determinism," which literally means "name-driven outcome." Alter points to the following examples: The current Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales is Justice Igor Judge. His colleague, Lord Justice Laws, is a judge in the Court of Appeals. In the realm of athletic pursuits, Anna Smashnova is a professional Israeli tennis player. Layne Beachley is a seven-time world champion surfer. Derek Kickett was an Australian Rules footballer. Stephen Rowbotham was an Olympic rower for Britain. Usain Bolt currently reigns as the fastest man in the world over the 100 meter and 200 meter distances.

Other examples include Daniel Snowman, the author of a book about the Arctic and Antarctica; Christopher Coke, a notorious Jamaican drug dealer; the rapper Black Rob who was sentenced to seven years in prison for grand larceny, and Dr. A.J. Splatt, a doctor of urology.

Are all of these examples just coincidences? For instance, would Usain Bolt run just as fast if his name was Usain Plod? Alter concludes, "Researchers have shown that our names take root deep within our mental worlds, drawing us magnetically towards the concepts they embody."

Possible Preaching Angles: Positively, this illustration shows that we can live into the true name that Christ has given us (our identity is in Christ). Negatively, this story can illustrate how we all carry names deep inside us (like "loser," Not-good-enough," "Failure," Rejected," "Abandoned") that shape our destiny more than we could imagine.