Keeping Our End in Mind

by David Beckmann

“So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom” (Psalm 90:12). As we are in that time of year when we celebrate Easter, we read passages when Jesus said that His hour to glorify the Father had come. He knew that His earthly ministry was coming to an end, and it was time to finish things up—indeed, it was time to do the most important things He had come to do.

Do we pastors sometimes wish we knew when our time will run out? Perhaps, we think it might help us focus or prioritize better. Being close to my “threescore years and ten” (Psalm 90:10), I know my days are running short. When you are young, you think you have forever— though you never know! But when you get older, the day of your death starts to be “a thing.” While the world would have us not think of the day of our death, I find it helpful. Indeed, we know it’s biblical to keep it in view.

I was just introduced to the book by David Gibson, entitled Living Life Backward. It’s a devotional commentary on Ecclesiastes. D. A. Carson says it’s one of the best of the new books that have come out about Ecclesiastes. Often, people look at the message of Ecclesiastes as “everything in this life is vain” and therefore point to the epilogue as the only really helpful thing about it. Gibson does a good job of explaining how Solomon shows that facing the inevitability of our death puts life into perspective. He then goes on to refer to the things that are really important— especially that we fulfill God’s purpose for us by enjoying the good He has made for His glory. Gibson writes, “This is the main message of Ecclesiastes in a nutshell: life in God’s world is gift, not gain” (p. 37). Taking our death into consideration as we live in the present breaks the spell the world has on us and enables us to be wise and see life the way God sees it. Interestingly, this is the same kind of approach taken by Michael Hyatt and Daniel Harkavy in their book Living Forward: A Proven Plan to Stop Drifting and Get the Life You Want (Baker, 2016). “Backwards” or “forwards,” their main approach to priorities is Solomon’s. They want you to start your life planning by writing your epitaph! Remembering that we are going to die helps us consider what is important for us to be and do in the time we have left.

In 1856, the famous French preacher, Adolph Monod, while he lay dying, said, “God alone has the right to decide when the work He wants to do through us is finished. It may be very imperfect and incomplete in the eyes of man; but if we are upright before Him, He will not allow our life finally to end without leaving some traces upon earth.” Your labor in the Lord, fellow pastor, is not “all vanity.” Be wise about it and rejoice in it.

About The Author The Rev. David Beckmann is an Anglican priest and Moderator of the C.S. Lewis Society of Chattanooga. Recently, he was director of the C. S. Lewis Study Centre at The Kilns, Oxford, UK. He blogs at revbeckmann.com.