Life After People

This past Monday, the History Channel premiered a documentary entitled Life After People. Using computer graphics, the show displayed what would happen to the world if every person suddenly disappeared. While of course it cannot be said to be 100% accurate, it was an educated guess at what would happen. This much, however, is clear: Our earthly legacy is frighteningly fragile. Within a few hundred years, most of what we have accomplished would be gone without a trace. Houses would collapse and be covered by vegetation, bridges would fall, media of all types would be eaten away by the elements. A traveler to such an earth might find Mt. Rushmore, or the pyramids, and wonder who made them and why (but after a few million years, even these too would be gone). The traveler would not find my car, my house, my bank account. This is my earthly legacy: A few hundred years of evidence that I existed, if I am lucky.

This is what the world tell us is valuable: Money, power, possessions. Money, the show did not mention, will disappear as soon as we do. Power saves no one from the grave. Possessions are just as useless and temporal.

God tells us that doing His will is valuable. He tells us that our true treasures are stored in Heaven; they are eternal. Caring for widows and orphans. Making disciples of all men and women. Serving the timeless God. The world doesn't understand, but the effects of these actions will last long after all else is gone.

"Therefore, everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell--and great was its fall." Matthew 7:24-27