Just a Drop of Cool Water 8-3-08
On the cutting edge of energy technology research are the nuclear fusion experiments with Tokamak reactors. Temperatures in excess of 600 million degrees Fahrenheit have been attained (in comparison, the center of the Sun is roughly 27 million °F). Most of these experiments are performed with an agenda towards developing a cheap, clean energy source.
One of the interesting things that they do involves a deuterium ice pellet (deuterium is a isotope of hydrogen, having a neutron as well as a proton in its nucleus). This ice pellet is very cold at 4°K (-452.2 °F), and it is injected into the reactor’s plasma stream (at about 200 million °F); the pellet is consumed in less than two-thousandths of a second. It is amazing to me the amount of data that these researchers can collect about an event that lasts such a small amount of time.
Our lives here on this earth are also very short, yet they determine the path that we will lead for eternity. Jesus related a story about this to his disciples:
“There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores. The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. In hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’ But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’ He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my father’s house, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’ Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’ ‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’ “ (Luke 16:19-31 NIV)
This life is but the merest hint of existence; our years here go by in a flash. But the brevity of our existence here is belied by the enormity of the choices that we make here. In Jesus’ story, we see that the unnamed rich man lived a life of self-indulgence, in which he had no care for the beggar dying at his doorstep. Lazarus, on the other hand, lived a life without the pleasures that were quite literally all around him. The choices each made had profound impacts on their eternal lives. The rich man chose sweetness in this life with eternal bitterness, while Lazarus chose bitterness here for a sweet eternity.
We, too, make those same choices. What we should keep in mind is that this life will end; the next will not! Choosing to forego self in this life in order to have a better eternity is like enduring a hot day, once, and then living comfortable and cool at a resort. But choosing to make yourself the “all-important number-one” in this life, thereby earning a harsh eternity is like having a party in your honor and then being sent to a prison for the rest of your life.
Live your life in such a way so that Jesus will welcome you to his side; don’t live your life thinking only of yourself. You don’t want this life to be the only cool drop of water in an eternity of fire.
-Charles Peterson