Finite Living
Over the summer, I listened to a 90-minute interview with Ben Sasse, a 54-year-old former Senator from Nebraska, college president, husband, and father who is battling stage IV pancreatic cancer. He has been vocal about sharing his faith during his cancer journey on multiple platforms, including 60 Minutes. In each interview, he recognizes he is in the process of dying. During one of his interviews, he shared the following:
“Death is terrible. Death is an enemy. Death is a wicked thief. But our finitude is not a flaw of creation. God is infinite, and he created us finite. We have an eternal future, but we have bodies which are constrained in time and space. God created the world and called it good in this form. We are not supposed to be limitless and boundless.”
The last sentence is what stays with me: “We are not supposed to be limitless and boundless.” According to Job 14:5, “A person’s days are determined; you have decreed the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed.”
When limits are reached, grief is standing at the door waiting for us. We are ushered into a space that contains defined boundaries; a beginning and an end. Crossing the threshold, we carry the love we had, and so we grieve. We grieve because we are finite and human. Yet, we grieve with hope. We have an eternal home. This is not all there is. The hope of heaven awaits.
Being human has its constraints. Living brings loss. Loss brings grief.
Grief is the result of love. And love leads us to hope, in this life and the eternal one that awaits.