I listened to my friend Nathaniel Bronner preach this morning. Just before he began recording the portion of the service he uses for broadcast, he said a prayer. In it I heard these words: “God, You know the end from the beginning.”

It made me smile.

Here we are just hours away from the end of one year and the beginning of the next.

Those words spoken by Nathaniel offered me a different perspective.

Over the last few days I’ve seen a number of shows present a review of those who died in the past year. Famous people were brought to mind. Among them actors, singers, politicians, writers and such.

It caused me to think about people I personally knew who had passed. People close enough to touch my life in a different way then those who were famous.

They were all at the end of their lives.

Or were they?

Nathaniel said clearly in his petition to God that “God, You know the end from the beginning.” (Isaiah 46:10)

“When God began to create[a] the heavens and the earth- the earth was without shape or form, it was dark over the deep sea, and God’s wind swept over the waters- God said, “Let there be light.” And so light appeared. God saw how good the light was. God separated the light from the darkness. God named the light Day and the darkness Night. There was evening and there was morning: the first day.” (Gen 1:1-5)

I suddenly saw things differently. He created the beginning and He knows the end.

Each of us were born into “the beginning” and if we believe in God’s Word and plan for us our lives are eternal.

Having lost a loved one is not an end but a new beginning or a continuation, transformation.

This year may end on the pages of a calendar but it is all a continuation from “the beginning.”

We were born to continue His work, His plan for us and the world. There are no endings. This I believe is a continuation, a constant flow, an outpouring from the beginning. Your story stops and the next picks up…from the beginning.

“There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.” – Frank Herbert

“Ends are not bad things, they just mean that something else is about to begin. And there are many things that don’t really end, anyway, they just begin again in a new way. Ends are not bad and many ends aren’t really an ending; some things are never-ending.” – C. JoyBell C.

“Life has to end, she said. Love doesn’t.” – Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven

So, read it again, “God, You know the end from the beginning.”

This is not the end but the continuation of the beginning and you and all you love and all who love you. See this as a constant flow of God’s love like the universe itself.

We are all a part of the Great Beginning!

Only God knows the end.

Happy Beginning!

Bob Perks