Today I had the opportunity to play a song at a funeral. Traditionally funerals are very sad for family and friends. I hardly knew the person that passed on but I am still left with a sadness inside my heart.

There is a lie being spread around our Christian circles and it needs to stop. This lie is that God “takes” his people from this life, and that he makes us sick to teach us lessons. That is a lie. People say, “God just needed another angel”, which not only is unsound doctrine, but is terrible for our faith. He lacks for nothing. He has all the angels he already needs. He simply desires a relationship with you, and wishes to prosper you.

The bible says in John 10:10: “A thief is only there to steal and kill and destroy. I came so they can have real and eternal life, more and better life than they ever dreamed of.” Plain as day God says in his word that he wants you to live a great, both in this world and the one to come. That’s why he sent his son Jesus, so through him, we could be restored to right-standing with him and have this life. Why have people been living this lie through to completion? This lie that God is trying to teach us a something through sickness, pain, suffering, and death?

There is a very real enemy out there who already has designs on taking your life from you. God wants life, and the enemy wants death. It’s that simple. It hurts my heart to know that pastors are spreading falsities about the one they serve and seek to please. It hurts to know that people are swallowing this as gospel, this “good news” so-to-speak, without an ounce of skepticism.

Don’t believe the lie that God is out to get us. That he wants some people to die, not realize their dreams and hopes, and leave their family in confusion and pain. He has nothing to prove through that. The world already has enough pain through sin and choices and the very real enemy who hates us.

This thought just occurred to me a moment ago, “What would I do if I could clone myself and somehow still mystically enjoy the experiences of my cloned self?”

My first thought would be to let my cloned self chase his wildest dreams. He might move to Nashville and become a huge rockstar/producer type, having his own recording studio and successful music career. In reality, that probably wouldn’t have been a great idea considering the recent events in Nashville, but let’s pretend the flood didn’t happen in my little fantasy world. He would love absorbing the diverse musical creativity of so many artists, and I imagine that would be a fulfilling and motivating existence for him (me).

What if I sent him down my original path? My teenage-self always dreamed of moving to California and living it up there with my brother-from-another-mother, Chris. Well, he wound up moving to Hawaii a few years later, so that would be super-sweet. I can imagine this cloned version of myself living the sweet life in lazy Hawaii, absorbing the surf and salt-water, writing ska/reggae/punk-rock tunes all day. This dream sounds like a happy-ending fairy tale, but it would inevitably turn sour as Chris wound up moving back to Missouri. I would hope that my artificial twin would stay, but he likes to have company and if he didn’t have a significant other (which I would hope would be a cloned version of my wife) he would have probably moved back too.

What other dream might a cloned version of me chase? What other path would he take? It’s something interesting to think about.