Reality Or Illusion?

Reality Or Illusion? Recently, while visiting neighboring Venezuela, I traveled through the Estado de Vargas, along the Atlantic coast of this South American country. One year ago, during December 1999, massive rains had provoked catastrophic flooding, landslides and the worst natural disaster to hit the nation in 200 years. As many as 20,000 people may have been killed and 150,000 left homeless. Most of the dead were buried under the mud avalanches or were swept out to sea. The tragedy had only happened a month before, and as we were driving along the makeshift roads, crossing army bridges and surveying the uprooted trees, destroyed villages and the rest of the wreckage left strewn about, something caught my eye – a sign hanging on a bent metal gate which read “Hacienda La Ilusión” (The Illusion Farm). I don’t know why the owner ever decided to give his farm that unique name. Other than “illusion,” in Spanish this word can also mean something incredibly wonderful, like a dream. Maybe that is what he had in mind at the time. Little did he then realize how terribly appropriate the sign would turn out to be! The twisted signboard has stuck in my mind and forced me to ask myself how much of what I think is solid in my life really is? How many of the things I consider mine are in fact temporary illusions? What is lasting and real, and what is not? What will stand the test of eternity? Are We Believing Illusions?
Even in the Old Testament there were people who said to the prophets, “Give us no more visions of what is right! Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions” (Isa. 30:10 niv). In the democratic days we live in, everybody claims the right to believe whatever they want. Further, many say there is no absolute truth, that everything is true if you want it to be. But is that really true? Jesus claimed, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (Jn. 14:6). Are we building our lives on illusions or on solid truth? We had better make sure! It is literally a question of life or death. Our Treasures Are Illusions
I think most of us acknowledge that material possessions won’t last. The wisest king on earth warned us: “Cast but a glance at riches, and they are gone, for they will surely sprout wings and fly off to the sky like an eagle” (Prov. 23:5). Jesus told us that the only way to make riches count was to “invest” them for eternity: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal” (Mt. 6:19-20). But do we live in accordance with this belief? Or are we “believers” in our hearts and hypocritically “materialists” in our practice? Even Our Lives Won’t Last!
A few days after our return from Venezuela, I was at the bedside of a sick friend. He died a day later. Even our very lives are illusions! James warns us: “Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes” (Jas. 4:14). Someone once remarked that there is no such thing as an “unwarned” death – “sudden” perhaps, but never “unwarned.” From the day we are born there are many reminders that life is uncertain and death is sure. We are warned again and again that death is just around the corner. Life’s permanence is just an illusion. Again, I think we all accept this fact mentally. But do we live making every day count towards eternity? Do our day-to-day decisions bear out the fact that we are living in “temporary quarters” ready to “move on” at short notice? On my grandfather’s gravestone in Holland is an inscription that characterizes the way he lived: “Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands” (2 Cor. 15:1). How are we living our short and fragile lives? Our Suffering Will Soon End
The fleeting nature of our lives also has a positive side! Paul encourages those of us facing problems and suffering: “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all” (2 Cor. 4:17). And who is not facing suffering in some form or other? For “man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward” (Job 5:7). So let us take courage! The race will soon end. Even those sufferings or trials that seem so permanent will also prove illusory. And the way we respond to these problems will determine our share of the eternal glory God has in store for us. So let us “run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus ... who endured the cross” (Heb. 12:1-2). Let Us Live For Real!
On this same Venezuelan trip, I was reading a biography of Jim Elliot, the missionary who was martyred by the Auca Indians in Ecuador in 1956. His best remembered words, and perhaps the most famous missionary quote of the last century was, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose” So then, let us “fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Cor. 4:18). Let us invest our lives in eternity and start living for real! By Andrew Nunn