Beginnings and Endings

I’ve been thinking of life today as more fluid with less defined beginnings and endings yet pressed on toward the goal of full salvation. My best, most Christ-like moments are neither my beginning nor the end of my story. My most loathsome sins are neither the conclusion nor the start. Beyond conception and death (though that too, is not final) there are no true beginnings or endings here on earth. Our initial salvation began not with our momentary assent but with God’s prevenient grace which sought us and drew us imperceptibly through the peaks and valleys of our lives. Even our conversions are not truly complete until we see Christ face to face. Instead, they are a halting, staggering ascent on the best days, a dreadfully regretful decline on our worst. Still, this is (thankfully) not the end of us; the end of our story. We are drawn along always, on our best days and our worst by the thread of His grace which is offered in spite of our sin and regardless of our victories.

We tend to view life as a novel with a beginning, middle, and a conclusion because it is neat, orderly, and makes a simple testimony for church services. In doing so, we both rob the Lord of the glory He would otherwise receive for the pardoning grace which covers ALL of our faltering steps and only serves to confuse the sinners (that is, all of us) when we compare such sanitized repentance fables with our own messy, incomplete, yet grace-filled biographies.

My true life is not a solid ascent. It is a story of transcendent peaks, pathetic falls, and seemingly mindless slogs. Yet I am drawn on, ever on, by the pursuit of the one whose pardon covers it all; the one whose beauty pulls me back from the brink a thousand times (and a thousand more); and for whom even a passing glance or a solitary word is enough to devote my entire existence to. So I go on, some days running, some days erring, some days pulled, toward the promise of my full inheritance by His limitless grace.