For God so...

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." - John 3:16

If you have ever gone to Sunday School or Vacation Bible School for any length of time, you probably memorized this verse. It is any good little church kid's bread and butter. By the time I was eleven I had been taught this verse so much that all meaning for me was totally eradicated. There is some truth to Psalm 119:11 "for I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you," but this verse wasn't just hidden in my heart, it was beaten into my skull. John 3:16 is a beautiful articulation of the awesomeness of God and everything He has done for us! But all I hear is "For God so loved... yada yada" because rote memorization kicks in after that. Maybe this is a personal problem and I just need to get over myself, but I think there is a bit of a problem with Sunday School teaching. Not just because of the over-touted and misquoted verses *cough* Jeremiah 29:11 and Philippians 4:13 *cough*, but there has been many times in the past year or so where I've thought to myself, "I never learned this in Sunday School." And I attended like every single sunday school growing up. But I digress. I'm not trying to be insubordinate and Sunday School is not what this blog post is about. Also I did learn a lot of good things there, and it doesn't really matter because we can't possibly learn everything we need to know in Sunday School.

(Btdubs, S/O to Roseann Nace who always brought us doughnuts, and I will never forget Josh Ollar's way of saying "spiritual")

So anyway, the word eternal here is interesting. I always thought it was talking about heaven. You know, with the resurrection of Christ we get to live forever with God. But Ecclesiastes gives a different perspective.

Ecclesiastes is a unique book in the Bible, because of the way 'the Preacher' writes. He acknowledges a God, but he doesn't say ever that God is Lord of his life. He goes about proving that all life is meaningless, but meaningless only apart from God. The book defends the life of faith in a generous God by pointing to the grimness of the alternative. Ecclesiastes has always been one of my favorites, and I think it's because I think similarly to the writer. Whenever I have doubts about God (as we fickle humans are wont to do) I can always counter them by realizing that if God isn't true - if my whole life is a lie - it doesn't really matter. If this world is all we have, at least believing in God makes me a better person. At the end of the day the world operates on morality, whether you believe in a higher power or not.

Throughout Ecclesiastes Solomon mentions that life is all a vanity*, and that what we are working for here, what we are toiling after, it will all just go to waste. It doesn't matter if you're good or bad because we all seem to get the same ending. Whatever you accomplished while on earth fades pretty quickly. So what Jesus doesn't mean by eternal in John 3:16 is that you're never going to die. Eternal means that by trusting in Jesus and walking with God daily, you will have an eternal purpose. When you have a faith in the unseen, your accomplishments will matter, and it WON'T all be a vanity.

Even though Sunday School didn't teach me a whole lot, I am still very grateful for the seeds it planted in my heart, because now I get to pursue a life-long relationship with my Lord and Savior.


*Vanity =frailty, nothing, nearest to zero, puff of wind, vapor, unreliability, emptiness, futility, no effect.