The ninth smart way to think about God is: GOD IS FOREVER. The authors I have been using begins this way with words similar to these: Ladies and Gentlemen, we are proud to announce that we have found the slogan for the God account: Get Happy! Get God!

The promise of fulfillment can sound more like sales hype than truth. Especially when confronted with the most devastating doubt of all: Death! The Masked Executioner always seems to stand one step behind us, scimitar in hand. In one fell swoop, He mocks our faith and delivers a coupe de grace to our smart way of thinking about God.

Death scorns us. It reminds us all too painfully that we are, in part, matter. It forces us to admit we are perishable. And even the promise of an Eternal God can seem like so much snake oil when face-to-face with the power of death.

Death has this way of making everything, including God, seem futile. Death can take most everything we’ve worked for, struggled for, and bring it to a grinding halt.

It is often our attitude toward death, even more than toward life, that determines how we live. Some people race around like madmen, trying to get it all in – the Rolling Stone philosophy. Cramming their lives with one thrill after another, they race through life trying to beat death at its own game. Alas, isn’t there a little stone rolling in all of us?

But whether you run toward death, or walk, sooner or later everyone gets there. Few people, atheist or theist, when in death’s embrace, can avoid self-reflection. No one can help but mull over their accomplishments, good, bad, or indifferent, and wonder if they actually achieved anything at all.

For many, it may be the first time they have stopped long enough to think about how they have lived their lives. It is no coincidence that it is the first time many people think seriously about God. Often, they’ve ignored God until the final hour, when, so commonly, they reach out in hope that the stupid way of thinking they were raised with has a shred of truth. They call a priest for the first time in years to administer last rites.

But who can blame anyone. Death is the great unknown. Death appears so opposite from the idea of everlasting life that it has frequently been turned into God’s rival instead of God’s Hand. A demigod, complete with its own independent mythology.

Yet to death, however powerful it appears, God lifts the Executioner’s mask firmly and deliberately – He sticks out His tongue and says, “Phooey.”

Since this is an important “smart” way of thinking about God, I shall continue with some additional thoughts in the next issue