Life is our default setting.
That is surprising since “The only sure things in life are death and taxes.” We could die within the next 20 years, 5 months, or “today.” ( “To Die” as the Aussies would say.) The death rate is 100%. So it’s remarkable that though death is certain, we don’t usually fret about it.
It is true that some commit suicide. This is due to a loss of hope. They see no way out. Death (and whatever goes with it) seems preferable to life. But this is the exception and not the rule. Yesterday someone told me he had ‘attempted suicide.’ I believe him. But he was still alive to tell me about it. That tells me that the desire to live outweighed the desire to end it all.
Catastrophic circumstances or the death of a loved one, and countless other things, make us think of death. We shudder hearing how someone died, but then an ice cream cone or a favorite song gets us back on the groove of life. We quit worrying.
This God-given sense, enables us to live as if death does not exist.
This tendency to block out something that is inevitable is an evidence of the permanence of life. God’s nature is permanent life. Jesus said, “I am the Life."1 John wrote, “He who has the Son has the Life."2 The overwhelming sense we have is to live today, to make plans for tomorrow, and to hold onto hopes for ‘down the road.’
Paul wrote to the Corinthian Christians, “If the dead are not raised, ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.’"3 If we have no hope of living, then we might as well pursue our desires here and now, today! But we don’t eat and drink because we fear death. We do it because we want to live. The default setting is life.
1 - John 14:6
2 - 1 John 5:12
3 - 1 Corinthians 15:32
