In a recent Brew Theology podcast, Janel Apps Ramsey said something that stuck with me. She described how prominent Heaven and Hell were in her upbringing, and she shared how, one day, she faced the question: What if none of that is real? What if, at the end of my life, I don’t go somewhere else? What if death is the end? Her story hit me hard because I remember the first time I came to that question.
I had just graduated high school, and though I certainly had a love/hate relationship with church, I perceived my views on God as fairly ironclad. I hadn’t really asked questions about what happens after death because I thought I was certain: Heaven, Hell, all that jazz. I don’t remember the moment it hit me, but I remember the feeling—an ache in the pit of my stomach as I first had the thought: what if I just cease to exist? I spent that summer in a slump. If this life is all there is, how should I go about living it? If my over-zealous piety wouldn’t be rewarded, was it worth having? How could people live knowing that they might simply cease to be? I filled my days with as much television as possible so I wouldn’t have to think about it.
The summer neared its end, and with only a few days left before I would move to Ohio to begin college, I was trying to spend plenty of time with my parents. In a late-night conversation with my mom (probably after The Daily Show), the topic I had been avoiding finally came up. Growing up, I had imagined my parents to have an unassailable faith, and it was only late in high school that I began to learn of their own struggles and doubts and questions. My parents helped me realize these doubts were a natural part of faith, so I knew I was safe to pose the question to my mom: “What if there’s no afterlife, and we all just kind of . . . end?”
She thought about it for a moment, no doubt reflecting on her own exploration of this issue, and responded, “Well, if that’s the case, it’s not like there’s anything you can do about it. Better to focus on the things you can control and keep helping others.” Maybe not the reassurance I was hoping for, but oddly, it helped. After that conversation, I realized something: I have a choice.
You see, a belief system that ignores this life and dwells only on Heaven and Hell will eventually invite a dilemma: If our current existence is nothing more than a training or vetting process for the afterlife, everything on this side of reality becomes either wholly inconsequential (because it’s up to God) or an all-consuming ethical puzzlebox (because it’s up to us), and neither of those is any way to live. Perhaps we’re better off focusing on the things we can control: the things on this side of reality.
Whether you believe in an afterlife or not, this life must be treated as valuable— something we don’t want to squander. And while I still believe in the promise of eternal life through Christ, it wasn’t until I questioned this belief that I really started to treasure the life I have.