For MIT physicist Alan Lightman, his daughter’s wedding day hit him hard.
Here she was, ready to walk down the aisle when he thought of his daughter. He wanted her back to age 10 or as a first grader holding a starfish smiling with a missing tooth. Instead, time sped on.
He struggled because his view of the physical world was of decay. He confessed:
Perhaps this immortal thing that we wish for exists beyond time and space. Perhaps it is God. I cannot believe that nature could be so amiss. In my continual cravings for eternal youth and constancy, I am being sentimental. Perhaps I could accept the fact that in a few short years, my atoms will be scattered in wind and soil, my mind and thoughts gone, my “I-ness” dissolved in an infinite cavern of nothingness. But I cannot accept that fate even though I believe it to be true. I cannot force my mind to go to that dark place.
People yearn for a life beyond this one. Many feel locked out, looking for a pipe dream.
God can give us what we long for. Paul mused:
“For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” (2 Corinthians 5:1)
Time moves on, but time moves toward something better and grander for the believer. For those seeking immortality, it remains elusive unless you seek it in the one who gives it.
Where are you looking?
-Robert G. Taylor-
