What If We Could Take It With Us? (Part 1)

“Naked I came from my mother’s womb,...” Truth. (Job 1:21)

“and naked I will depart.”  Again, Truth. Rich, poor, middle-class, when the clock strikes midnight we all turn into the same thing.

All to prove what many wits have said, “You Can’t Take It With You.”  What kind of response is that supposed to create?  According to Job it is supposed to result in our praise of the name of the LORD. Really? Is the fact that we enter and leave this life naked supposed to be a comforting thought, a wake-up call or a depressing thought which causes us to ‘eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die?’ 

Couldn’t God have made it so that we enter life with a million bucks in an account paying 8% interest which we can take with us, along with our full collection of Beatles records? If God wants to bless us, wouldn’t that have been a better plan for Adam and Eve, et al.

What if we could, Augustine wonders?  “What if we could  take something, wouldn’t we be devouring people alive?  What is this monstrously avid appetite, when even huge beasts know their limit?” Animals know when they are full, so they stop eating, but we human beings, our appetites for ‘stuff’ is insatiable.  If God had designed the afterlife so that we could take our possessions with us can you imagine how stingy we would be in this life?  Think about it: you get past St. Peter and the Pearly Gates and the first thing you see is a money changing booth, where your savings can be turned into the currency of heaven.  I don’t know what the exchange rate would be, but people would be dying to find out.

Think about what our last will and testament would read like if we could take it with us?  Would charities stand a chance at getting 10% of our net worth? Would our children receive more than a token percentage?  Our mansions in heaven would need garages the size of football fields, but at least our kids wouldn’t have to hold estate sales (or rent dumpsters).  Still, wouldn’t you like to know that the treasure you accumulate in this life is going to pay some dividends in the life to come?