The Sigh

The past few weeks have provided me with a wide variety of highly anticipated emotions.

I will be honest and say that about 97% of those emotions were somehow Star Wars related.

But there was one emotion, or state of being really, that really stuck out to me and honestly I did not realize how long I had been waiting for it until it arrived.

This emotional state could only be described as The Sigh. Not a sigh of exhaustion or being overwhelmed but an actual sigh of satisfaction. It is the rare feeling you get when the to-do list is actually done and you can finally just sit down and relax.

For me, this happened when I turned in my last assignment of the semester and came to the realization that at that very moment there was absolutely nothing due of me. I did not believe it at first and sat and thought for a few hours about what I could be forgetting. Surely something was required of me.

But alas, nothing was. I could actually take a break without feeling guilty about it.

This was just a little sigh and I know another semester is just around the corner but I appreciated it nonetheless.

The non-theistic belief of what happens to a person after death is generally, at least in my experience, described simply as entering into a state of non-existence. It is not positive like heaven or negative like hell but simple a neutral outcome of all living things. This makes sense. If there is no God then we should expect there not to be anything good or bad beyond the limits of our biological life.

But then in an attempt to further explain themselves almost every non-theist I have talked to follows up with the statement “it will just be like going to sleep.”

But sleep and non-existence are not the same thing. And the older I get the more I realize that sleep is the total opposite of non-existence. Sleep sometimes feels like the peak of human existence. Real sleep is a state of worry free refreshing bliss. Naps make me feel alive.

So by trying to describe a neutral outcome we have actually created a very positive hopeful ending to our human narrative in depicting death as a state of total rest from all turmoil. The Buddhists call it nirvana, the Hindus call it moksha, and Christians call it Heaven.

I’m going to start calling it “The Great Sigh.”

It is interesting to me that everyone everywhere seems to be craving this state of being that could only be characterized by the word “rest.” We all want to reach the end of our lives with the ability to kick our feet up and feel fulfilled enough to stop working and struggling so hard and just relax.

I have been reading through some of Paul’s letters lately and really studying a few phrases that have stuck out to me. There is one word that is translated into English in several different phrases all throughout the New Testament that I think perfectly describes what I am talking about.

The word is pleroo (along with several variations) and it carries with it the idea of “fulfillment.” It is bringing things to a point of completion and is used by both Paul and Jesus dozens of times to describe really what Christianity is headed toward. The goal is completion and fulfillment. The goal is for the laundry list of struggles and trials to come to a place where they are finished and we can finally rest.

So when the non-theist says that death is just like sleep they are really saying they are believing for something actually quite heavenly. Don’t get me wrong, I am looking forward to the mansions, the streets of gold, and the Jell-O filled swimming pools (I am sure they will be up there). But if all Heaven is just a constant state of eternal rest then that is still where I want to go.

I belong to what is increasingly being called the “cult of productivity.” Cult is a strong word that usually denotes shaved heads and magic Kool-Aid but I didn’t make up the term so don’t blame me. The term basically describes people like me who are obsessed with getting stuff done. We follow bloggers who constantly write about how to better schedule and set goals our day and download any app that promises to efficiently organize our life in neat to-do lists.

None of this is bad but lately I have realized that I work incredibly hard to get stuff done just so that I can reach a place where I can get more stuff done. It is a never ending cycle that only leaves me exhausted and overwhelmed. So my one resolution for this year is to simply work toward rest instead of working toward more work.

I want to push really hard with the goal of a sigh in mind instead of working really hard to feel good about how much I can accomplish. Because in the end, the whole trajectory of my life should be to work toward the Great Sigh that only Jesus, the fulfiller, can provide.

So imagine the small sigh of relief in those moments you finish a job and then imagine that same feeling multiplied by a hundred and lasting forever. That is what we should be working toward.