I’ve always thought of the Bible as the Book of Life. And it is, really, it’s our guide through every year an every stage of our life. But lately I’m thinking of my life as a book too. Like the Bible, my life starts out at the beginning, just like it does is Genesis, and has many chapters and many plots and adventures to work through to the end. When I look back over the past 60 years of our marriage I am amazed that so much could be packed into one lifetime.
Most of us have several really different chapters in our lives, and it’s fun years later to see how God put pieces together as we were going along and eventually worked things out. A lot of the time I wasn’t even aware He was working, and spent needless time worrying about the problems. There’s also a lot of growing and maturing expected of us while we are going through our life, and the sooner we obey what God is showing us and get busy doing it the sooner we will be celebrating how wonderful life is.
When we’re reading a book there is more time spent in the middle than in the beginning and the end, and that reminds me of life too. It’s the stuff in the middle that really makes the story, the experiences and adventures that we go through in those middle decades. What’s always most important is how well we obey God and follow Him through it all. When we get off the path He has ordained for us things really start to fall apart and it takes time and sometimes drama to put it back together again. Yet His eye is always on us, and He’s right there waiting when we come running back to Him.
At this stage in my life I feel like I’m over the hill and picking up speed. You know how when you get near the end of the book you get anxious to see how it ends? I’m beginning to think about that; I want my life to end well with me obeying God to the end, and eventually going home to a grand reunion having finished my life honorably. I want to hear Him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant, you have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your Lord.” Matthew 25:23.
But I can’t just sit in my chair and wait for that day to come. God has prepared us to serve Him throughout our complete life, and He has been giving me more and more things to do for Him. He is guiding me and showing me my purpose each day as I read and study the Bible. It’s exciting to realize that there isn’t an age limit to the things God can use us for. He wants to use all those experiences we’ve lived through and share how faithful our wonderful God is to help us. No matter how old we are we can still encourage others to trust is God and be a prayer warrior for them.
This book could have two possible endings, and I am the only one who can choose which ending I desire. I have chosen to follow Jesus with my life, and to believe that He died for my sins, and that choice that I made many years ago to follow Him is the only key that will allow me to enter into heaven and spend eternity with my Lord. Like my mom always said, “If it is to be it is up to me.” It was up to me to make that choice, and through that decision and act I have the privilege of spending eternity with God. I have the confidence that the end of the book of my life is better than the beginning, and it has a happy ending. And that makes me terribly excited to get to that glorious ending.
Philippians 4:8,9 “Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things. The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things; and the God of peace shall be with you.
