A: Years ago I worked at Faith for Today, our church’s longest-running television ministry. We were filming a documentary on the subject of suicide and paid a visit to a most unsettling place—the Los Angeles County coroner’s office.
Several portions of the show were shot in the morgue (the facility where dead people are brought for examination before being handed over to funeral homes or other agencies for burial). I probably saw more than one hundred corpses that day, some waiting to be identified by relatives, some undergoing autopsies to find out the cause of death, and others lined up on gurneys along the hallways waiting to be studied.
After seeing all those bodies lying around like abandoned shells on a seashore, I began to see how useless we are without God’s breath of life in us. We’re just a collection of tissue and bone. Nothing more.
But when God breathes life into us, as He did for Adam and Eve, something wonderful happens. Our arms move, legs kick, the heart beats, lips smile, the voice speaks, lungs expand, eyes blink, toes wiggle—everything that makes us who we are comes with that glorious infusion of life-stirring power.
The moment we die, that breath (or ability to live) returns to God for safekeeping until the resurrection. Our bodies eventually crumble into useless piles of dust. But don’t worry. On that wonderful day God will breathe again. And so will we.