The Finish Line

It's a bit of phenomenon really, our ability to live so much in the moment that even the passage of time itself can be a bit of a shock. We've all experienced this. Whenever a child seems suddenly older or we do just because we heard the exact number of years, or when we look back and suddenly realize just how long it has been since high school, or that your vacation is already over.

The point is that although time moves on as it will, our experience of it tends to skew towards the now rather than the will be or has been. Our ability to accurately understand the time we have is woefully lacking. This plays itself out in a number of ways, not the least of which being our abysmal lack of respect for how much time we have left.

Do you remember the first time you realized that you are going to die? I do. I was just looking in the mirror one day, getting ready for something I suppose, and the realization hit me that I am now older than ever I have been before and that nothing will stop the inexorable march towards the grave; that one day I will die. I will die. I will be dead. I will have shuffled off this mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisible, I will be an ex-person!

All joking aside though, death is the ultimate statistic. You'd think that so frightening a thing would impact our every moment of every day but in reality we are remarkably adept at ignore the elephant in the room. Most people spend very little thought on their ultimate fate, perhaps a defense mechanism or simply to avoid the uncomfortable.

This a tragic shame and a dire mistake. When it comes down to it there is really only one question that matters anything at all, what happens after?

If the humanists and the secularists are to be believed than nothing happens after, in fact there is no after. You die and that's that, no more you, next in line please. You will die and even if you've managed to affect the lives of those around you it wont' matter because they too will die eventually. The afterlife, for lack of a better word, gives meaning to an otherwise meaningless existence.

I am a Christian. I make no excuses for this. I believe that there is more for me after my physical death, more for us all actually and that has to mean something for me today. We're all going to die but what happens after depends in large measure on the now and the yesterday and the tomorrow. Knowing this, can I not say something about it to those around me? Will it not affect my choices and decisions?

A runner runs with purpose for he looks to the finish line that lies ahead. If your life now is without purpose than perhaps that is because you see no purpose ahead. If you are of those who claim to believe in something beyond, if you believe -like me- that God will see to the ultimate fate of every human being than are you living like it? Are you running with purpose?

Is your eye on the finish line?