You Decide the Ending

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote, “Great is the art of beginning, but greater the art is of ending.”

One of the things I’ve realized over the years is that life can be full of surprises. For instance, people whom I thought would make their mark on the world simply crashed and burned.

Then there were others whose potential wasn’t all that obvious. I wondered whether they would amount to much of anything. Yet God put His hand on them in an amazing way, and they achieved things in an incredible way.

The Bible tells the story of someone who had the potential to become one of the greatest leaders in the history of Israel. He was actually a judge over Israel during the time when Israel was ruled by various judges. His name was Samson, and God’s hand was on him in an amazing way.

Yet Samson had an incredible beginning and a tragic ending.

One day, your life will be summed up in a paragraph on a program that will be handed out at your memorial service. When that day comes, no one will care about how high you climbed in your profession. No one will care about what kind of car you drove or how much money you made. Rather, they will talk about what kind of person you were.

So what would you write for your obituary? You decide how your story will end spiritually. God said, “I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live” (Deuteronomy 30:19 NKJV).

God wants you to be a spiritual success. God wants you to touch this world. But if you self-destruct spiritually, that is not on God. That’s on you.