ENDINGS

The cliched cartoons portraying December 31 through January 1st usually picture two figures. One's the bent-over, long-bearded old guy slumping off with his curved-blade scythe. The other: a pert, diapered infant toddling into the drawing. “All of life's a circle”--lyrics to a pop group's hit--come to my mind....until I'm reminded of how scripture pictures the transitions of life. It's not about an “old guy” going off life's stage. It's about the eternal One who formed us, purposed us, and has marked the day when “now” will become our “eternity”--“which” eternity being our choice.

I shake my head over how a midnight alcohol-fueled hoopla around a clock in New York City gets such big coverage. Instead of parties, a reconsideration of purpose should propel us into a new year. E.M. Bounds, author, attorney and minister (1835-1913) considered these issues, too. In Heaven: a Place, a City, a Home (Revell, 1921, p. 125) he wrote:

Heaven ought to draw and engage us. Heaven ought to so fill our hearts and hands, our manner, and our conversation, our character and our features, that all would see that we are foreigners, strangers to this world...Heaven is our native land and home to us, and death to us is not the dying hour, but the birth hour.

I rediscovered this Bounds quote in a book by a grieving father, Levi Lusko, Through the Eyes of a Lion (W Publishing Group, 2015, p. 171). Lusko, whose daughter died in childhood, wrote of life's brevity: “Far better than living in denial about the fact that our lives will end is facing up to it and living in light of it. The only people who are truly ready to live are those who are prepared to die.”

Lusko also reminded readers that Heaven isn't just about “getting through the gates” through faith in Jesus Christ. What happens in Heaven is connected to what happened on earth. He quoted 19^th century missionary-to-India and author Amy Carmichael: “We will have all of eternity to celebrate the victories, and only a few hours before sunset in which to win them.”

Half a century ago, “All of Life's a Circle” topped pop music charts. Perhaps that's true in why we call birth to death a “cycle of life.” But God's perspective is linear, not cyclical: birth to eternity—with two choices for the route. One ignores God or just gives Him lip service. The other is eternally purposed.