This week my oldest son turned 27, Joshua is now older than I was at his birth.  It is both a moment of reflection upon his life and my own.  He has accomplished a lot academically to this point, just as I had, but now he is applying his knowledge to his vocation, just as I did.  We are in different fields, my training and vocation in the relationship between humanity and the divine and his in the scientific. Half of my working vocational life lies behind me and Joshua’s entire vocational life is in front of him. 

As I look back over the course of the last 26 years what have I accomplished?  I have pastored God’s people in Jesus Christ in several congregations.  I have preached the Word of God as contained in the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.  I have helped people join those churches and about a fourth of those professed their faith in Christ publicly for the first time.  I have comforted many sick people.  I have held the hands of many as they breathed their last breath in this world.  Then I celebrated their lives as their families mourned their loss.  I have held the children as I baptized them into the family of Christ the Church.  I have also had the privilege of baptizing adults who have come to the church later in life.  I have ordered the life of the church (local) through administration, and I have also built facilities and remodeled others for the work of the church.  I have helped start a Hispanic church and a community food pantry and I helped grow a major homeless mission and worship service.  In my personal life, I have helped to parent two fine men and have been a fairish husband.

While this is not a complete summary it hits the highlights.

Yet all this is nothing compared to what Jesus has done for me.  None of these counts for anything when I will stand before Him, and He judges my life.  My victories and my failures are nothing to Him for His victories are greater than all I have accomplished or failed to.  The only thing that will count is my faith in Him.  The only thing that will save me from damnation is His mercy.  Only through His Grace can my transgressions and my sin be covered by His sacrifice.  No matter what I have done it is overshadowed by His Cross.

So, is my life meaningless?  No, it is meaningful to the Kingdom as Christ as He has made use of me.  They are both of great and small use to the Kingdom as He has deemed it and as He has woven my life into the tapestry of eternity.  None of what I have done is of credit to me only to Him. 

My life is not lived so that I may receive honor but that I may honor Christ and Him alone. 

None of this makes sense to the world and it is not supposed to!  A life lived for Christ is a counter-cultural statement for the Kingdom of God that those who live enslaved to the ways of the world can not understand.  That is our call as Christians not to live unto ourselves, but to live as a witness for Christ, to point to Him when we accomplish something, and to seek forgiveness when we fail.  We need to understand that everything is for His use as He is working out all things for the good of those who love Him.

So stand ready for the great things, big and small, that He plans to do through you!

Peace,

Burt