What Happened To A Young Idealist?
Written: February 16, 2001
Many years ago, when I was not yet a new-born Christian, I wrote in a school a composition that the teacher liked a lot. The composition was based on a Star Trek -episode that came from television a little earlier. In that episode the crew landed on a planet where people lived in harmony with Nature. They were happy people and they had no stress. I felt like there was an eternal Sunday on that planet. I don't remember how the episode ended but it is not important. In the composition I brought an idea that this planet would be much better place to live, if all people would do same way as they did in the Star Trek -episode. If we all would move to more fertile area to live and if we would raise ourselves our own food. Only the essential consumption goods would be made in factories. Later I realised how stupid and naive I was. Because my parents have a summer cottage and many big kitchen-gardens there, I have got practical experience about what it is to raise own vegetables and to chop own woods for fireplace. On the other hand it is pretty comfortable to work there in sumer, and - I think - it would be hardly possible to raise so much potatoes and carrots that I wouldn't starve to death till next summer. But, during the last years I have realised how much distress and pain people bring about to their fellowmen and -women everywhere in the world. If people in the rich West would abandon their present life-style and would depress their standard of living to a level there was one hundred years ago, we were no able (no money) to send missionaries to foreign countries telling people about Jesus. I don't mean that we should begin to start consuming like maniacs - it is wise to spare money - but if you are a new-born christian and if you have a good job, you should be grateful to God about thepeople who consume and help you to keep your job. You should also remember to lay down 10 - 20% of your income to charity. Of course, no one should spoil the environment with purpose. Jesus has promised to come back before Earth is incapable of living. It is possible that a few species of insects may vanish before, but in God's eyes man is much more valuable than other creatures. It is so, because man has an immortal soul and He spends an eternity either in Heaven on Hell. The environmentalist say that factories should make big and expensive sacrifices because of the environment. However, I have never heard any fanatic environmentalist giving up his (or her) rights. For example, I have never heard anyone saying: "I desided not to have babies because I want to save the world."--------------
I think about these people who lived one hundred years ago. Life was physically much harder but I am comforted by the idea that they didn't suffer for nothing. People who lived 50 or 100 years ago had much bigger change to save their souls and get in to Heaven. This is because at the time people lived in a closer relationship with Nature. They had no TV, Internet or Harry Potter - books which could have turned their hearts away from God. And even if most of them finally ended up to Hell, they will not be punished so hard. Nowadays the medicine has developed so much; people know - for example - the secrets of human body so well that if someone still want to believe, that man has evolved by accident, then he has desided not to believe in God. So he can't defend him in front of God at the Day of Judgement.