In the Star Wars Novel: The Cestus Deception, Obi-Wan Kenobi is forced to council the Regent of the planet Ord Cestus in the philosophical art of battle. A powerful fighter challenges the Regent because she will not put the interests of his rich and powerful family over the interests of the entire planet. If she dies, the challenger will take office. Even though she has no fighting skills, she cannot back down and cannot have a champion fight for her. She has no choice but death. In the face of this Obi-Wan instructs her:
Never fight for anything you will not die for: Those who fight for glory, or gold, or power, stand on shifting sand, not the bedrock of true courage.
Later, she stands on the sand floor of the arena eyes closed, mind at peace, and with a single strategy: at the moment of her demise, strike her opponent with a fatal wound. Instead of finding death, her opponent soon cowers in fear and forfeits the duel. She gains his seat on a powerful council, and he gains nothing.
There is one man who this reminds me of. Saddam Hussein’s cause was for himself, yet he never did truly fight. In the end, he was found cowering in his bunker, underground. How symbolic. Like the words of the fictional character Obi-Wan, the Bible tells us that those who live for themselves stand in the wake of destruction. They will be sent to hell when they die, a place of fear, pain, purposelessness, and loneliness with none of the possessions or prestige they had gained for themselves while alive.
I believe that those last moments Saddam spent underground were similar, if not very much like hell or perhaps even judgment day. In the end his acts were of no eternal value. On the other hand, the bible also encourages believers to focus on things that are unseen, the eternal. Acts that are of eternal value are selfless, flowing from the life of the Holy Spirit through us. Those acts will echo out into the lives of others, and perhaps influence change in the eternal destiny of the people around us.