Who Wants to be a Millionaire? Me-ow!!!

For you regular readers of this blog, you know that my major theme is out-of-the-box thinking and living. Today is going to be a little different, as it involves full-on inside-the-box thinking. I’ve been thinking about Schrodinger’s Cat this morning. For those of you who know what I’m talking about, feel free to skim through the next paragraph. For those who have no idea, a little science lesson follows. Don’t worry! There won’t be a quiz afterwards.

The basic premise is that a cat is put into a closed box with a flask of poison and a small amount of a radioactive substance. If, at any time, an atom from the radioactive matter decays, a hammer is triggered that will break the flask and the poison will then kill the cat. Before all you animal lovers get outraged, this is pure theory. No one has ever actually done this to a cat (that I’m aware of, anyway). Because there’s no way to tell when an atom will choose to decay, as long as the box is closed, the outcome is uncertain as to whether the cat is dead or alive. So, until the box is opened and the outcome is observed, the cat exists in a state both alive and dead.

I realized today that, in a bizarre sort of way, I’m that cat – at least as far as my friends and family are concerned. The box is my “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” appearance. The outcomes are anything from leaving with $1000 for playing the game up to winning a million dollars. Once the show airs, then the outcome will be known, but until then, my outcome is in a state of flux, just like the cat. And therein lies the paradox. My outcome is not in a state of flux, because the “experiment” is over and the results are in, but to my friends and family, and even strangers who I mention my game show experience to, I could be anything from a thousand-aire to a millionaire. Pretty cool, huh?

Once I got started down that rabbit trail, I realized that we actually are all just like Schrodinger’s Cat. We are in this box we call life, and many factors that act upon us while we are in here. And when the box is opened, i.e., we draw our last breath, we have two states that we can be in – ready for heaven or ready for hell. But, we have an advantage Schrodinger’s cat never did. We can impact the outcome of the “experiment”. I’m sure if that cat had a choice, it would have disabled the hammer first chance it got, so that the poison would never be released. We don’t have that option though. The hammer has fallen and the poison has been released into the world. This poison is sin. As I mentioned in an older blog, Galatians 5:19-21 describes some of the toxic fumes of this poison. “Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like.” We are all guilty of some of these – I personally can attest to having been guilty of over half-a-dozen of those in my lifetime. That poison infuses our lives and leads only to death, destruction and hell.

There is one, though, who came into the box, and removed the poison within us by taking it all into himself. He died with our poison running through his veins, so that we could live. Three days later, he returned from the dead, having paid the price required from each of us when we die, allowing us the opportunity to live when our particular box is opened. The problem is that the poisonous fumes of sin still exist in the box, and some people would rather inhale those fumes – which smell so sweet, but ultimately lead to death – than to accept the amazing gift of the life after this one. For those who haven’t accepted that the only way to heaven is through Jesus, you are that cat in the box with a future still in flux. You can still alter the way the experiment ends. But don’t wait, because you never know when that box will open and your outcome will be set in stone – literally.