Sleeping in the dust
That might not sound like much fun but ya'know that is where many of us will go...
Yep, right there in Daniel 12:2 "And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt." (KJV)
It seems to me to be the perfect companion to the scriptures that say we were made from dust and that we return to dust! I always thought that passage was talking about being in the hole where many are buried, but I got a different perspective tonight while I was puzzling through an issue that has been blocking my testing at work. I was also listening to some prophecy videos regarding the Sunday evening 4th Blood Moon of the latest tetrad... Not only the 4th, but all 4 falling on Jewish holy days plus, a Super Moon, plus a Shemitah marker, plus a Jubilee marker... on and on...
When I gave my life to Christ in grad school it was a struggle for me... I felt like I had to give up my scientific mind and cling to mythical religion... and the Lord required that of me. Then immediately he gave it back and I began to realize that the more I learned about the world, the more it pointed me to him! That is really the point of my series in the blog "I do not exist". My final conclusion there was "Sorry Renee <Descartes>, God thinks, therefore I am." I showed through a series of arguments that we are not whom we think we are and that actually we are manifested physically by a sort of program that God set to create us moment by moment from the ever changing dust of the earth. In "In His Image" and other books, Dr. Paul Brand (with Phillip Yancey) described how every molecule in our bodies - including our bones - is swapped out for new "dust" every 3-4 years! It is pretty hard to look in a mirror after that revelation without seeing a physical manifestation of God's moment by moment creative activity in my life... what amazing love...
Over the centuries various thinkers from various religious backgrounds have pondered death and specifically, where we go when we die. The scriptures seem contradictory where some places speak about "sleep" while other places seem to indicate that we will be immediately in the presence of Christ... ugh... to much to figure out! Like other things (e.g. free will/predestination) I sort of find a place to soak in the various arguments and just see how it ends up. Usually I come to some scientific way of visualizing it that satisfies my curiosity and allows me to see both sides at once. Daniel 12:2 just did this for me on the death issue. Now it fits perfectly with my conclusion in the blog...
You see, if I am manifested in this physical space by a program that uses the dust of the earth to create a physical me, then I am very comfortable imagining my body as "sleeping" in the dust.. after all it always was only dust! Some people worry that on resurrection day our bodies will not be able to be put back together if we are lost at sea, eaten by creatures, burned... see now? None of that matters! We do not have the same molecules in us for very long anyway!
2 Cor 5:8 (KJV)
We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.
I am kind of sleepy now... time to sleep... nois
