Second Thoughts: One Hundred Billion Eternities
Author: Thomas White | Editorial Staff, Living Church of God
We’re often told to think about the “big picture” of Christ’s return and the soon-coming eternal Kingdom of God. But when you’re young, even the small picture seems absolutely enormous.
Learning to drive a car is terrifying when you’ve previously only driven—and crashed—a Mario Kart. Getting married is unbelievably, mind-breakingly immense when the whole of your existence has been not married. Young adults doing their best to meaningfully visualize eternity will probably be about as successful as preschoolers trying to ponder the theory of relativity, and I say that as a young adult.
Mr. Phil Sena’s recent assembly—delivered via the internet, due to this virus you may have heard of—addressed how difficult it can be, as a teenager or young adult, to focus your life on the Kingdom of God while also… you know, managing all of the really important, earthly milestones young people naturally have to deal with. Because you have to finish school. You have to get a job. You’d really, really like to marry someone and have children, and then you have to make sure you don’t neglect that spouse or those children. And in the midst of all of this, you have to remember how temporary everything is—even though right now it’s legitimately quite important—so you have to keep talking to God. You have to keep pondering His ways and commands. You have to keep fasting, you have to keep spending time with the Bible, you have to keep examining yourself.
Your Part of the Picture
That really is a big picture, and it’s legitimately difficult to keep up with everything. But it’s also a tiny picture—because it’s only about you. When you’re trying really hard not to make a physical mess of your life, and doing your best not to make a spiritual mess of it, either, it can be all too easy to miss the fact that you’re just one person. Yes, God cares so very deeply about you, and you should never, ever forget that, but even your eternity is just one eternity.
You know what’s bigger than an eternity? Read the title again.
According to that nifty little internet we’re all using to maintain some semblance of normality these days, it’s estimated that around 100 billion people have lived on Earth up to this point. And hey, you’re one of them! Congratulations. That means the Kingdom of God is 0.000000001 percent about you. That’s how big a part of the picture your one eternity is.
Their Part
As Mr. Sena profoundly emphasized, the world needs God’s Kingdom. It’s about so much more than your personal salvation or mine, and it’s even about so much more than the collective saints of God being transformed in the first resurrection. It’s about rescuing everyone in the entire history of the world. It’s about redeeming not just our time, but the whole of time itself. It’s about one hundred billion eternities.
That’s a big picture. And if our first thought of the Kingdom is usually, “Oh boy, I sure hope I make it there,” we’re forgetting 99.999999999 percent of that picture. We should never stop striving to enter God’s Family, because that’s literally the entire point of human existence (Ecclesiastes 12:13), but when we’re trying to think of the big picture, let’s at least remind ourselves that the vast majority of that picture isn’t about us—and let’s thank God for the fact that regardless of any one of us, the Kingdom will come, creating an unfathomably joyful universe of one hundred billion eternities.
Thomas White was one of the onsite Living Education students for the 2018-2019 semesters. He also has a Bachelor’s Degree in English. Thomas currently works as an Editorial Assistant for the Living Church of God. According to his wife, he eats pizza in entirely the wrong way.
