I recently read a book entitled “The Treasure Principle” by Randy Alcorn.

It was a very interesting book and one I would recommend you read. As I read this book, Alcorn brought out this illustration in his writings.

He gave a visual of drawing a dot on a large piece of paper, then drawing a line extending from the dot. The line could theoretically extend into infinity for the following reason: the dot represents our life here on earth.

It is finite; it began the day we were born and it will end the day we die. The line represents eternity. For us eternity begins the day we die and extends forever.

Eternity is a difficult concept for us to understand. We are geared with a finite mind and a finite outlook.

If we cannot wrap our arms around the concept of something, it is difficult for us to understand.

We live our lives in seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years. We keep schedules, print calendars and plan everything based on time. Think of the largest number you can think of. With the help of Google.com, I will give you some assistance.

A centillion is expressed as 10303. This is the number one followed by 303 zeros! When we get to a centillion years in eternity, we are just getting started.

Eternity is forever and ever and ever. It never ends. We will live forever when this life on earth is over.

So, what is the reason for this sobering thought? Going back to the dot and the line, we are usually guilty of living our lives on earth as if they will never end.

Most of the time we spend so little effort preparing for eternity because the whole concept is so difficult to understand.

When we look at our average lifespan and then compare that time to eternity, the dot and the line concept starts to make sense.

If we add a one to centillion, then we are off and running toward the next big number, but have only begun to extend the line away from the dot.

Tony Roberts is the pastor of Abundant Life Church in Alabaster. He can be reached at 664–8942.