Life after Death

Is this life preparing us for the next? James Choung examines how our decisions in life not only reflect our character but also our life after death.

Questions for Discussion and Personal Reflection

  1. Have you chosen a life that seeks to serve others, or serve yourself? Would those closest to you agree with your response?
  2. Has there been a time in your life where you've felt you needed to change the path you were heading down?

You know, if, if I had the rock solid answer on that, I'd be a national bestseller, right? I used to volunteer in a convalescent home just north of Boston in Cambridge. You know, a lot of elderly folks are there. Um, t's, it's kind of, it was kind of a place of nightmares. You know, you walk in glass double-doors, uh, linoleum tile on the floor, the smell of medicines and other fluids in the air. Uh, one thing we noticed very quickly was that at that age, there was very, there was very little, uh, in between. Either these folks were as nice as the sun, right? They were so sweet it was unbelievable. Or they were so mean, you just couldn't believe how mean some of these people would be, just straight out yelling at you to get out the room just because you came by unannounced. You know, uh, which I think sort of makes sense. You know, like, when we're younger, we, we care a lot about what other people think about us and when you get to that age, you, you really stop caring, right? And so your true self comes out, and that, that true self has been shaped over the years to be one way or another way. I, I really think where that, that, the crux is whether you've chosen a life that seeks to serve others or to seek, that seeks to serve yourself. And when you get to that age, that really becomes really clear, whether you are a gracious servant-like, selfless kind of person or whether you're a son of a gun. And I just think that, you know, right there at death's doorway that sort of gives a glimpse of what our souls are going to be like as, as we move forward to, to life afterward. I, I think at that point, there, there becomes a place of reckoning. That, I think that God wouldn't be a, a just or a fair God if he didn't deal with the junk in us and around us when it's all said and done. So I think that's the case, I, I, but I really, really believe also that there's hope in that, that that's not the final say, and the hope therein is that there, there is a power, there is life that is accessible to us in Jesus that can change the path that we're heading down. Truly, not just in the life to come, but in this age, to become the kinds of people that Jesus meant us to be, to be who Jesus would be if he were me, and to do things that he would do for the reasons he did them. I think that's what we're all given the opportunity to do, to live really the life that's meant for the ages, a, a kind of, frankly a supernatural kind of life. Um, and that's the kind of life that prepares us either to be with God or to be the kind of person that doesn't want to be with God in the end, and hence an accounting.