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.

LEFT BEHIND

If trinkets could talk, they might tell quite a story. Maybe a dusty story of life before they were “left behind” when their owner downsized or passed away. I sometimes wonder about their “history” when I pass by these shelves at a local thrift store. I'm reminded of Paul's advice to Timothy: “We brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it” (1 Timothy 6:7). Or as someone wagged, “You don't see a U-Haul following a hearse.”

I have some décor and heirloom items around our home, most of them gifts. But cleaning out my parents' home after their deaths put a check in my heart of having too much “precious stuff.” My mother collected dozens of salt and pepper shakers! They sold for a pittance to another “collector.” Ditto china cup and saucer sets that were rarely used but displayed behind a glass case. My child's “start” on collecting was felt triangular pennants from places we visited on vacation. (Remember those?) They once filled a wall in my childhood bedroom. Now they're probably in some landfill. Oh, yes, I had a “birth month” ceramic angel. (Remember those? They're still around, often advertised in the ad-filled “magazine” of many Sunday papers.)

Someday, somebody else will have to dispose of “stuff” I left behind. None of us know when death will come. My retired-teacher-husband is starting to see obituaries of his former students. One was recently killed in a traffic accident, but the obituary mentioned that she had recently accepted Christ as her Savior.

Sometimes it helps to read about how godly people of the past anticipated their deaths and eternal life. I found this quote about eternity by John Baillie (Scottish theologian and ecumenical churchman, 1886-1960) both encouraging and profound:

Not even the most learned philosopher or theologian knows what it is going to be like. But there is one thing which the simplest Christian knows—he knows it is going to be all right. Somewhere, some-when, somehow we who are worshiping God here will wake up to see Him as He is, and face to face; but where or when we know not, or even whether it will be in a “where” and a “when,” that is, in space and time at all.

No doubt it will be utterly different from anything we have ever imagined or thought about. No doubt God Himself will be unimaginably different from our present conception of Him. But He will be unimaginably different only because He will be unimaginably better. The only thing we do certainly know is that our highest hopes will be more than fulfilled, and our deepest longings more than gratified. (1)

It will not be a life enhanced by trinkets, but by the pure worship of our holy, awesome God.

(1) John Baillie, Christian Devotion (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1962), p. 44, cited in Elton Trueblood, The Lord's Prayer (New York: Harper and Row, 1965) p. 92.