Where are my friends?

There was once a popular song, “I Wish We’d All Been Ready.” It was about “end-times” events. General expectations for the future of earth are not positive. Talk of future golden ages is scarce. That has been replaced with fear of trouble and suffering. There are few offers of real hope. Do we understand that judgment is in our just future, that guilty humanity will someday answer to a righteous God?

In that song there is a stanza: “A piece of bread could buy a bag of gold.” It was speaking of the promised famines that will take many lives, and it was identifying the reality that material things we value now will be shown to be useless in the end.

Recently exploring the internet, searching for my high school graduating class information, George Washington High School, Philadelphia, class of ’67, I found a group photo of the 50-year reunion.

The class had 619 students. The photo had about 80 - most of them unrecognizable. Years of great expectations from 1967 to 2017 filled the many lives represented there. Today there would be even fewer. Our class motto was, “We’re in heaven in 67.” Many of the class have lived that motto out during the short years to 2023.

Are 56 years a short time? Yes, compared to forever. I wish we’d all been ready for forever. But I know that many were not. And forever does come. Often it comes unexpectedly, not at a “good” time.

So where is the hope for a bright future with so much of life past, and we’re not yet invested in that which lasts forever?

Jesus promises: “…He that hears My word and believes Him that sent Me has eternal life, and shall not come into judgment, but is passed out of death and into life.” (John 5:24)

Need help finding hope? Try peacewithgod.net. Let hope replace fear.