I just don't understand... I'm a devout follower of Christ, let me just start off with that. From a young age, some of my older family (grandmother and her brothers/sisters) instilled in me the goodness of the Lord. What I really don't understand is why they (and the majority of people I've observed) fight death so much? They had lived long and fufilling lives, but almost all of them had to "battle" cancer... Which really confused me... Seeing all of these people I loved so much turn into zombies before we had to put them in the grave.
You just hear it so much... "Praise God for sparing my life" ... "The Good Lord has given me another 10 years even though the doctors only gave me six months." What??? Like, life is a struggle, even when everything is good. I'm not saying it's always dark and gloomy..but it's meaningless... the struggle, the rewards, all written off as worthless.. And as Christians, we're promised that the afterlife is the solution to the burdens and meaninglessness of this world. Personally, mourning the death of fellow believers is a selfish act, but it's part of the process of dealing with loss. I just don't understand why we expect each other to put ourselves through hell if we're secure in the truth that they're going to leave us to go be with the Lord.
Ecclesiastes 1 New International Version (NIV)
Everything Is Meaningless
1 The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem:
2 “Meaningless! Meaningless!”
says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
Everything is meaningless.”
3 What do people gain from all their labors
at which they toil under the sun?
4 Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
5 The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises.
6 The wind blows to the south
and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
ever returning on its course.
7 All streams flow into the sea,
yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
there they return again.
8 All things are wearisome,
more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
nor the ear its fill of hearing.
9 What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there anything of which one can say,
“Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.
11 No one remembers the former generations,
and even those yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow them.
Wisdom Is Meaningless
12 I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem.
13 I applied my mind to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under the heavens. What a heavy burden God has laid on mankind!
14 I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.
15 What is crooked cannot be straightened;
what is lacking cannot be counted.
16 I said to myself, “Look, I have increased in wisdom more than anyone who has ruled over Jerusalem before me; I have experienced much of wisdom and knowledge.”
17 Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind.
18 For with much wisdom comes much sorrow;
the more knowledge, the more grief.
I just think the true test of one's faith is not what they have to say about the goodness of the Lord, but how they view their own mortality.