A new report from Canada’s largest school board in Toronto says that more than half of the nearly 103,000 students surveyed say they worry about their future. While their worries are about this life, they illustrate a larger picture – concerns about the next life. Blaise Pascal, a brilliant Christian mathematician and physicist who lived in the 1600s, had insights for today. He wrote “Man wants to be happy … but how shall he go about it? The best thing would be to make himself immortal, but as he cannot do that, he has decided to stop himself thinking about it. We don’t want to think about our frail lives, the fact that someday our lives will end, so we fill our lives with toys that numb our minds and help us forget.” And Pascal was absolutely correct. Pretending there is no afterlife, and using diversions is not the answer. But Jesus promises, “I am the Resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he may die, he shall live.”

Pastor Alex Rockwell