This week marked my 10th year in full-time, vocational campus ministry. Straight after college, I began working in our campus ministry as a full-time volunteer, and it became official in the first week of July 2004.
Looking back, it’s been a great journey of God’s faithfulness in every area. The saying that I’ve heard so often is really true:
God doesn’t call the qualified, but He qualifies the called.
In other words, you won’t be able to be and do everything He called you to be and do on your own. But if God called you to do something, just stick to Him and His plan for your life and you’ll make it.
But besides talking about how it started, this week I was made to think about how it’s going to end. Carla and I attended a talk given by Pastor Larry Stockstill, a man with grown sons, who has been in ministry for decades, and has a thriving relationship with his wife and with his God.
During his talk, he kept asking us to think about how it’s going to end. How will your name be at the end of your life? How will your ministry at the end of your years of service? What will your children say about you when they’ve all grown? Will you and your wife love each other more in your twilight years?
During the break, I thanked him for what he said. He said something to me that got I’ve been thinking about ever since:
You have a picture of how you want to end your life. And you set that course of your life today.
I’m not going to suddenly have the life I want at the end. It’s something that we build with our everyday choices and decisions. The question then is this, “Is how you’re living today on track with how you want to see your life end?”
- The way we’re spending money
- The way we treat our bodies and health
- The way we nurture our relationships in life
- The way we discipline our schedule
- The way we pay attention to the most important things
These are all indicators for how our life is going to look like at the end. I am grateful for this lesson, 31 years into my life and 10 years into my vocational ministry. What do your current life decisions say about you? How do you like how the end looks? What are you gonna change about it?
