God, presence of | Afterlife | Death

“Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is great in heaven” (Matthew 5:12).

There is a play in which a troubled man spends his whole life tormented by thoughts of God, which leads to feelings of his own inadequacy, and feelings of guilt. Finally, he decides to end it all, to at last put a stop to the voices, and the dreams, and the late night visions and the inner-torment — all haunting reminders of an ever-present God. In the final scene of the play, the man is raving. He grabs a pistol and puts a bullet through his head. Immediately after the explosion, the stage goes totally dark. When the lights go back on, the audience sees the man sprawled out on the stage, pistol next to his body. Behind him sits a white-robed man at a desk. “Gabriel, bring me the file on J.A. Smith,” he says. Then the man lying on the stage struggles to his feet. The man behind the desk…