Pratt: Biblical story is a window into an Eternity that each of us will face

The faint glow of a rising sun is on its way to say the Earth still turns before I quietly creep back to my bed. Sometimes, I go right back to sleep, reassured that another day we are privileged to live and work or play.

With the smoke of the recent Panhandle wildfires and the dust of high winds and horrific wildfires this year, we have a clue as to what faced pioneers as they moved from seasiders to the interior of the North American continent. A key component to their survival was a strong faith in God, who sustained them through what seemed almost impossible odds.

Add to forest fires the danger of dry, grass-covered prairies and you begin to get an idea of how strong those early pioneers were. Yet, in the 1930s men were jumping off tall buildings in New York because they had overnight lost what had been the family fortune. Their faith had been placed in wealth. Loss was a shame they could not overcome.

Their biggest problem was not material loss, but absence of spiritual commitment. We’ve all despaired at times at loss such as death of a loved one and/or material hardship. Whatever the fires in our lives, most of us know something about suffering, especially those who have life-impairing illnesses.

My dad was a walking, talking history narrator as we traversed the cotton field in pre-irrigation years, hoeing weeds out of the cotton to preserve water and allow the crop to hopefully flourish, my two younger brothers and I absorbed a lot of history.

Sometimes it was ancient history, often in poetry format. You think country schools were to be pitied? Think again. In the early 1900s, in addition to basic reading and math, mostly self-educated teachers were often well-read in the classics, including their Bibles.

Dad’s phenomenal memory equipped him, not by his schooling, but his natural love for reading. Credit also parents and grandparents who provided appreciation for learning along with a faith and work ethic.

We had preachers, teachers as well as farmers, lawyers, scholarly and artistic skills on both paternal and maternal sides. Most families, I would guess, have similar mixtures in their heritage.

Commonly, as a country we seem to have become more “worldly, gathering around the “might makes right” philosophy, a material designation of wealth and position. Religion, some say, is on its way out. If that is true, so are we. Freedom, easier to lose than keep, is a key component in such determinations.

It might help us all to realize we and our children have much more unexplored potential than we might think if we knew more about our historical past. Culture is a strong force for or against such exploration.

Opinions about the Judeo-Christian accounts of Creation and evolving humanity in the biblical stories are varied. Some dismiss biblical commands as only yesterday’s story. Biblical story is not history in the sense we memorize events and dates.

Instead, it is a window into an Eternity that each of us will face, whether we get the details correct or not. Some of us enter by the door, and perhaps some will climb in through a window in their last moments of earthly life.

There is only one Creator throughout the many biblical stories of human endeavor; only one guide to living that when observed, undergirds and judges the “progress” that humanity has experienced. We have a multitude of examples of what happens when we fail to observe what is often referred to as “The Ten Commandments.”

Complex enough to keep scholars calculating their full meaning, these commands are simple enough that a small child can be taught to follow the rules of human interaction that pleases our Creator. We once posted the instructions in our courtrooms around the country. Our parents taught and enforced these simple rules at home. Mankind has long succumbed to faith in materialism over spiritual values.

None of us succeeded totally in following this ancient “Way,” so our Creator intervened, providing One who willingly took on our rescue from Satanic Evil, bent on destruction of God’s beloved humankind.

That is the essential story we celebrate on what is called Easter Sunday, celebrated March 31 this year, and in Sunday worship every week. Our salvation is God’s goodness, the invitation of God to overcome Evil, which is bent on our destruction. It is the gift of Eternal life in a new dimension through the sacrifice of Jesus, conquering Evil as the Son of God.

Beth Pratt retired as religion editor from the Avalanche-Journal after 25 years. You can email her at beth.pratt@cheerful.com.

This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Pratt: Biblical story is a window into an Eternity that each of us will face