Proverbs 10:27 says…

The fear of the Lord adds length to life, but the years of the wicked are cut short.

Are there righteous people who have died young? Of course. Are there wicked people who have lived long lives? Absolutely. So what does this proverb mean? I’m not going to pretend to know the exact intent of the author but I do want to offer some insight.

There is a difference between living and being truly alive. I’ve heard it said before that some people stopped living long before they died. So how do you truly live life? If you in believe in God, you must press even further and ask a deeper question. What was the Author’s original intent? God is good and that means we can pretty easily surmise that the way things are is not the way things were initially intended to be. Clearly some things went wrong.

What God was doing by sending his Son Jesus Christ was initiating the creation of a new humanity. In fact, he was attempting to restore what humanity was all about. We were created in the image of God and our original purpose was to be his image bearers throughout the earth. Clearly something about that image has been broken. God’s image is not represented in the brokenness we see around us and in ourselves. And yet, there is something glorious in humanity. Something lost. Something forgotten. Perhaps one of the most painful things about being human is having a vague enough memory of this forgotten glory to show us how far we’ve fallen.

Jesus came to reverse the effects of the fall. He came to bring life (John 10:10). It’s funny because I always equated Christianity with death when I was growing up. Jesus seemed to be boring and mean. I saw a lot of pictures of him on the way to the cross or on it. I didn’t get the idea of the resurrection. The resurrection of Christ is a picture of what he wants to do with each one of us. He wants to bring us back to life. It’s an invitation that we all get to accept or reject. How have you answered that question? Why?