Practicing for Eternity

Seven Generations, Two Directions, and the Promise of Immortality

That the generations to come might know, and the children yet unborn…

   — Psalm 78:6

…and immortality brings one near to God.

 — Wisdom 6:20

But as for me, I am poor and needy; come to me speedily, O God.

 — Psalm 70:5

One of the most compelling ideas I have encountered comes from the Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois, tradition: we should make our decisions with the welfare of the seventh generation in mind. Think about that for a moment. If I count myself as the first generation, the seventh would be my great-great-great-great-grandchildren. But if I count seven generations after myself, I must go one generation farther still. These are people who may live two hundred years from now, in the twenty-third century—the world of Star Trek! They will have their own families, occupations, problems, hopes, and dreams. They will experience their own ordinary Tuesdays, just as we do. And although I will never meet them in this life, I believe I have a responsibility to care about them. The decisions I make today, the values I pass along, and the things I leave behind may influence lives that will not begin for another century or two. What a remarkable expansion of our understanding of personal responsibility!

But I find it equally compelling to look in the opposite direction. Most of my great-great-great-great-grandparents were born in the eighteenth century, many of them in countries far from the United States. Their world was unimaginably different from mine, yet their lives eventually made my own possible. I have devoted considerable time to learning about these ancestors, recovering their names, tracing their relationships, and trying to understand the circumstances in which they lived. Why should we be so interested in our grandchildren and great-grandchildren, yet regard the generations before our grandparents as little more than names on a chart? The people who came before us deserve remembrance, just as the people who come after us deserve consideration. Psalm 78 gives this concern a specifically spiritual purpose: the generations to come, including children not yet born, should know the works and faithfulness of God. Our responsibility is not simply to preserve names and dates. It is to pass along a living testimony of what God has done, so that those who follow us can discover faith for themselves.

The reading from Wisdom introduces another dimension to this long view of human existence: immortality. “Immortality brings one near to God.” As an Adventist Christian, I do not believe that human beings already possess immortality as an inherent quality. I believe that immortality is a gift God will confer upon the redeemed at the return of Christ and the resurrection, when His kingdom is established. But what an extraordinary prospect that is! We spend our earthly lives constrained by time, distance, aging, and death. We cannot visit the eighteenth century to meet our ancestors, nor can we travel into the twenty-third century to embrace our descendants. God, however, is not limited by the boundaries that govern our lives. I cannot claim to know precisely what existence in God's eternal kingdom will be like, or how our experience of time and space may change. Yet the promise of immortality invites us to imagine a relationship with God far richer and more complete than anything we can experience now. We are promised not merely an endless succession of years, but a transformed existence in His presence.

And perhaps we can begin preparing for that existence already. I sometimes think of my interest in the generations before and after me as a way of exercising my immortality chops. We are mortal people learning to think beyond the boundaries of mortality. When I research an ancestor born in 1775, I am reaching beyond my own lifetime to acknowledge that another person's existence mattered. When I consider a descendant who may be born in 2175, I am extending my concern toward someone whose life is still far beyond the horizon. Neither person is here with me today, but both belong to a human story much larger than my own. Wisdom calls us to seek understanding, and surely part of wisdom is recognizing how small our individual lifetimes are within God's purposes. We can begin practicing an eternal perspective now, not because we have already received immortality, but because we believe that our lives are connected to something that will outlast us.

Then comes the rather startling contrast of Psalm 70. “But as for me, I am poor and needy; come to me speedily, O God.” Here is someone who isn't contemplating the eighteenth century, the twenty-third century, or the wonders of eternity. He needs help right now! His suffering is immediate, his resources are inadequate, and he is pleading with God not to delay. How very human that is. When we are frightened, grieving, ill, mistreated, or overwhelmed, the promise of an eternal future may seem terribly distant. We cannot simply dismiss someone's suffering by reminding them that someday everything will be better. Pain is real. Injustice is real. Loss is real. And the Psalmist's urgent prayer reminds us that God cares about our present circumstances, not merely our ultimate destiny. Yet I wonder whether the promise of eternity might help us bear even the most difficult experiences with a different perspective. Haven't we all looked back upon a terrible day, years afterward, and discovered that it no longer seemed quite as overwhelming as it did when we were living through it? The passage of time doesn't necessarily make the experience less terrible. But it can change the place that experience occupies in our lives.

Now imagine that perspective extended into eternity. I wonder whether, when we look back upon our most painful earthly experiences from the vantage point of God's eternal kingdom, we may find ourselves saying, “Well, it wasn't that bad after all.” Not because the cruelty, suffering, or injustice was insignificant, but because God's restoration has become so much greater than the suffering itself. What once seemed capable of destroying us will no longer have the power to define us. And what a difference that hope might make in the way we live today! We can care about people who lived two hundred years ago, take responsibility for people who may live two hundred years from now, and still respond compassionately to the person crying out for help beside us. Psalm 78 calls us to remember and teach across generations. Wisdom invites us to contemplate the immortality God promises. Psalm 70 reminds us that eternal hope must never make us indifferent to present suffering. Eternity is not simply something we hope to experience someday. It is a perspective we can begin practicing today.

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