Some years ago, my sister was sightseeing in Scotland. She saw an old man wiping tears from his eyes.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
"Not really," he replied, "I'm looking at all this beauty and realize I won't live much longer to enjoy it."
The man was experiencing an existential crisis, seemingly resigned to the notion that death is final.
Image generated with the assistance of Microsoft Copilot
It’s a strange set of affairs; Like the tearful old man, I love to walk and explore nature in the fine places in Scotland that keep me feeling young. I’m a bit overweight but healthy and full of joie de vivre. There are so many places yet undiscovered. I haven’t been to the Outer Hebrides or north of Inverness. I have visited the Island of Islay on Scotland’s west coast, but with recent DNA connections revealing ties there, I need to return with fresh eyes. Yet, the doors are closing.
Just over a year ago, I underwent a series of medical tests. At the conclusion, I was invited in to discuss the results. I received unwelcome news: cells that had served me faithfully had turned rogue, causing a rebellion in my prostate, pancreas, and liver.
The consultant looked puzzled and said, "You seem very bravado about this?"
"Oh, I get all this," I replied. "But there’s a young man inside me who has walked with me all my life, I will still be around after I close my eyes"
I ask you, the reader—and I’m sure you know—but do you also feel that younger self with you throughout your life? This inner presence becomes more prominent as we age. May I share my thoughts on this?
Centuries ago, a wise man wrote the following:
“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men…”
Those words are from Ecclesiastes 3:11 from The Berean Standard Bible and worded by wise King Solomon speaks of a wisdom he received from God as a gift for faithfulness as a boy.
There are many theories out there I’m sure were the wise of this age speculate why I have a young man in my head and why eternity lives within, but no one, absolutely no one has any scientific evidence for why we have a rich inner lives dancing in our brains. Sure, they have unzipped the skull countless times, and they put it in jars and slice it like spam and study it under all their microscopic kits, but they only have theories, and theories come and go.
We have rich inner lives because we were built for eternity.
That morning, I was going to see the consultant, my wife and I, read Psalm 91:1,
“He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.”
After reading it, I said to my wife, “We are going to receive bad news today.” God was forewarning me before I got the results.
God has always spoke to us, but at certain times, there is that special voice that cannot be coincidence. No, there are 31,000 verses in the Bible, what’s the chances of opening the scriptures and that verse is staring at you? No, God spoke to us personally.
When Jesus said, You will be with me in Paradise, will it be better than the landscape I see before me in Scotland? Surely, without a shadow of a doubt.
