“So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.”
(Romans 14:12)
A wonderful writer named Richard Purtill has helped me imagine God’s plan and God’s purposes in a whole new way. He supposes that when we leave this life, and God reviews with us our years on earth, we will understand our lives like we understand a book.
At our death the entire book of our life will be presented to us and we’ll be able to re-read past sections, skip ahead, and so on. We will also see our lives as part of something much larger and more complete. And, according to Purtill’s imagination, all this reading and re-reading will be done in what he calls “Godlight.”
For the first time ever, we will see our lives from God’s perspective. This will involve seeing with ‘full force’ how our sins have hurt others and how our love helped them. For sure, we will feel every kind of emotion imaginable during this process.
Still reading our lives (like a book) in this ‘Godlight,’ we will realize that one reading will be insufficient. Purtill writes: “As we may write a commentary on a book that has meant much to us, so, part of our afterlife could be an appreciation and correction of our present lives. Even if our present lives have been failure after failure, even if we are barely saved after a life of folly and waste, we could still make these wasted lives the foundation of something glorious. A commentary much better than the book.”
Wow! A commentary of my life that is much better than the book of my life. Gladly, I would offer the book of my life in order to enhance the commentary. How about you?
Richard
I have a different take. We live our commentary. The commentary is the life. If we move toward God and live out the love He shows us, we get to engage in a running annotation. To be fully in each of our stories creates a much more valuable dialog than a heavenly review, IMHO. According to C. S. Lewis we will merely walk through a doorway into another life that will be a satisfying continuation of this one. I don’t see too much time for shoulda coulda woulda. We will either be well-prepared for continuing the work God gives us in the next life, or we will be caught up in catching up on executing God’s plan.
“For the first time ever, we will see our lives from God’s perspective. This will involve seeing with ‘full force’ how our sins have hurt others and how our love helped them.”
I like this idea very much, but not as a separate idea from the life we live now. This life is more of a staging area for the life to come. God’s work will not stop when our lives end; it will continue with new chapters. We will not be giving the book of our life back to the Librarian, we will be in a workshop with the Author of our faith writing the next chapters of the Neverending Story. I don’t see Death as a denouement. I see it as a way to continue the narrative.
Sounds good, although I’d like to think that the commentary is by Someone Who is forgiving and wants to emphasize the best and minimize the worst.
I feel that the Book of Life is like a history book filled with dates, actions, and reactions of others to your actions. A summary or conclusion follows at the end of each section.
The commentary sounds like it will be like a guide to understanding your actions and reactions to the variety of incidents in your life span. From all this you can improve in all your actions and reactions to others to allow God’s love to shine through.