Half-Life Christianity?

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What is half-life?

According to Chaisson & McMillan’s Astronomy Today (Prentice Hall, 1993; the only physics text handy), the atoms of radioactive elements disintegrate as their unstable nuclei break down. Half-life is the time it takes for half of the nuclei in a sample to disintegrate. And that is the beginning, middle and end of the science lesson.

I discovered a good bit of popular media spun from this concept. Consider the video game, two Marvel comics, and a mention in The Yearbook by Peter Lerangis, to name a few. “Half-life” seems a powerful toy for the imagination, but to understand why I mention it here, you have to know this:

Half-life is a measure of decay.

In media and academia, science and faith often clash. However, if you believe 1 John 2:17, and I do, then, “The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.” The phrase “the world is passing away” (emphasis mine) indicates a process. A process of decay. Can we measure that? Should we?

Does decay have a remedy?

The Bible study I’m working through included a question about how hardship eventually led to God’s blessing. I asked myself if I hadn’t gotten a set of circumstances that I didn’t like, would I still be living “half-life Christianity”?

The idea startled me. I meant the phrase as shorthand for going through the motions without living my faith, but the science applied. When I was saved it was once and for all, but last year my commitment, faith, service, attitude, prayers, and relationships both horizontal and vertical were all in a state of decay.

half-life ChristianityThen things went nuclear.

If I reached the end of my spiritual half-life, then I still had the other “half” left. That was more than plenty for the God of the universe to work with as He began throwing circumstances my way designed to bring me back to Him. Jesus didn’t come to offer half-life Christianity. He came “that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (see John 10:10 for reference).

Hear that? With Jesus we get to quit living the half-life, and have life, abundantly.

Tweetable: You’re not abandoned, even when things go nuclear!

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