Finishing Life Well
You’ve just been given notice that you have three years to live. How will you live out the remaining years of your life? Will you liquidate your bank account and travel the world? Will you quit your job and hang out with family and friends? Will you just party like there is no tomorrow? Just what will you do?
None of us are given the exact time we will die. And that is a good thing. But, even if we do not know the exact moment in which we will die, the question still seems to me to be one of great value – how will you and I live out the remaining years of our life, whether that be three days, three years, three decades? There are so many resources available to us that offer ways to “finish well.”
That phrase finishing well means different things to different people – those who die with the most toys win, ride off into the sunset, long and undemanding retirement years; healthy and pain-free golden years, just to name a few. I once heard someone say, “the only thing golden about the golden years is the color of my urine.”
While there are many good and decent ways to end well, one that is very important to me is to follow Christ up until the last breath I take, finishing what assignments He has for me, and hearing those words, well done, my good and faithful servant.
The apostle Paul, as he neared his death, addressed one final letter to his protégé. In these final words, Paul gives Timothy two key elements for him (Timothy) to finish well – keep preaching (2 Timothy 4:1-4) and finish what you started (v.5), fulfill your calling.
Paul then goes on to express a triumphant confidence about his own life – “I say this because I won’t be around to help you very much longer. My time has almost run out. Very soon now I will be on my way to heaven. I have fought long and hard for my Lord, and through it all I have kept true to him. And now the time has come for me to stop fighting and rest. In heaven a crown is waiting for me, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me on that great day of his return. And not just to me but to all those whose lives show that they are eagerly looking forward to his coming back again” (vv.6-8, TLB).
What then are key elements of finishing well? Let me share I few that I believe are important: continuing intimacy with Jesus; sustaining faithfulness to the spiritual disciplines; having a teachable, humble, and obedient heart; never-ending investment in the lives of others.
I turn sixty-five in a few days, and while I hope to have many years left, let’s be honest, the clock is ticking. I see nothing wrong with slowing down and enjoying the fruits of my life’s labor. My wife and I still have dreams to dream, places to see, things to do. But, over and above all thing things I still have in front of me, much of which I look forward to, let me end with this verse, once again from the apostle Paul, as he bid farewell to the Ephesian elders – “However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace” (Acts 20:24).
So, today, I ask you – how do you plan to finish your life well?
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