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