Finish this

“It is finished!” _Jesus, AD 30

Sometimes I am tempted to envy Jesus.

While I do not envy how he finished; I do envy how he knew what he had to do to be finished. 

For his station in life, during the time period in which he lived, Jesus lived a full and meaningful life.  He had a loving family and a respected trade; he traveled (far more than most people of his time), met a lot of interesting people, gathered around him some very close friends, and accomplished many amazing things. 

However, underlying all that was one driving priority; Jesus knew, early on, the one, and only one reason that he had been born and he knew that when that was achieved, he was finished.

For most of us, life is so open-ended. 

Day by day we live our busy lives and then one day it’s over.  Did we finish?  Did we do well? Did we achieve what it was that we were sent here for?

These are all questions that can be pushed to the side while we are dashing madly through life. 

But during those early morning hours when sleep evades us, we hear them whispering to us. 

What are the answers to these disturbing questions?

We were not created on an assembly line; we are all one-of-a-kind masterpieces created by God (Ephesians 2:10), so the answers will be different. 

But the longer I live the more I am convinced that they must be answered if we hope to live a robust and meaningful life, and the best way to answer them is to answer them daily.

We may not know exactly what we have to do with our entire life to be finished.  But we can prayerfully decide for this day what it is we need to do to be finished today.  The big picture may be beyond us, but we must not lose sight of the now. 

The ONE THING for today: Answer the question: “What is the one thing I must achieve today in order to finish this day well?”