The Living Dead

“How do we treat the living dead?”
Most of us would probably laugh at this question because zombies are not real, but there are many people on earth who can be categorized as “the living dead.” They are the spiritually, and eternally dead. How do we treat them?

On pages 110-111 of The Road, the father and son find some people who are living dead men. Their fate is sealed. They will die soon, and no mercy awaits them. The cannibals who have them as prisoners will show no sympathy, but how do the father and son treat these “living dead?” The father’s natural instinct is to take his son and run as fast as they can. His and his son’s survival are his first priority. He sees these living dead and views their condition as a warning and he does not want to stick around long enough to even think about the depth of their pain.

Do we Christians do the same thing? Do we many times look at unsaved people – the living dead – and think that we just need to run away as fast as possible, or that we need not stick around long enough to see the depth of their need for God? We tend to be very earthly-minded. We worry about what people might think of us or about the sacrifices involved in spending time discipling a baby Christian and convince ourselves that they are too dangerous to be around and we should run away.

But shouldn’t the “living dead” be the people who stir up our deepest compassion? While we worry about our image or our time and want to do with it what we will. We may even be afraid of trying to help those in spiritual chains to break free. But as we focus on these earthly things, our God in heaven is looking at the soul of the people who live without him. He is looking with deep compassion at those who are destined to live eternity without him. Philippians 3:19 informs us that we should have our minds set on heavenly things. We should strive to set our minds on the things that God sets His mind on. When we do, we will no longer look at the “living dead” that live around us and run, but we will instead risk even our earthly lives for the sake of their heavenly ones.