I can come to terms with death

I've already written a bit about death in one of the previous sections—death as the ultimate evidence that suffering is part of our existence. For Christians, there is another entirely different way to look at death. Christians don't believe that death has the last word. Christians believe that this life on earth is a mere blink compared to our lives in union with God.

While no one knows exactly what that looks like—aside from an absence of death and suffering—it forms an important building block of our faith. You may be thinking, well, that's not believable because it is certainly not imaginable. And indeed, it's something that is obtainable only by faith, which for Christians doesn't mean a lesser reality, just not one that is based on empirical evidence.

But what does this mean for Christians who do have the faith to see that reality? It means that death is a mere stage whose finality relates only to this life we have encountered so far. Death is real, but it's also fleeting. 

As I've mentioned so many times before, Christians are just people. We're anything but perfect. We might cling to our lives even when we know we don't have to, or we might give in to a fear of dying, which in turn makes us suffer. But generally speaking, Christians are not afraid to die in the hope—the expectancy—of what comes next.

This in turn implies that several billion people worldwide (the estimated one-third of the world's population who considers itself Christian) have a fundamentally different outlook on this all-important matter of finality compared to those who don't and who see death as final.

Think about what that means: Think, for instance, about what it means as far as our ability to love and give. This capacity becomes unlimited when we don't have to worry about ever being paid back. Think about its implications for the suffering we experience through diseases, loss of relationships, financial hardships, or general deterioration. They're still there, but we can view them very differently because of their now very, very temporary nature.

Even though we look forward to life after death, Christians don't reject our lives here and now as unimportant. Instead, the Christian view of the life after death is what drives and motivates this current life. A birds-eye view of Jesus' teachings reveals that though he talked about life after death, the vast majority of his teachings were related to the present life, with the gritty realities of how to love and how to forgive. So rather than being in a waiting mode before entering the eternal presence of God, Christians are—or should be—in an active loving mode, modeling as well as we possibly can what that presence looks like right now. And with every single little step toward the love we imagine God to be like, we ourselves become a little more like God on earth, Jesus. As I said, we'll never attain that goal here on earth, but the hardships of life, the loneliness embedded in all of us, and the apparent randomness and meaninglessness of life find answers right here and right now. Life after death is beautiful to imagine, but this life is rich and beautiful and meaningful as well. Even when it hurts.