Finishing Well

How often do we survey our life and look back with the regrets of past failures. Oh, the things that I would do differently if given the opportunity. How many have made the statement “If I could just be 20 again and know what I know now”. There is something about passing 40 that makes you aware of your mortality. It is a fact that I am a dying man.

So what if I had a second chance? Would I be a better husband? Perhaps I would be more attentive, loving, and compassionate. I am sure that I would be a better father. What parent doesn't look back into the past and think of the mistakes that they have made? There are many things that I would do differently as a father. I have discovered that my children remember less of what I bought them and a lot more of my absenteeism from working to many hours to provide the things that they have forgotten. We have fallen for the myth that we can replace quantity time with quality time.

It is true that when looking into the rear view mirror of life we can easily critic the past. The old adage is true that hindsight is 20/20!

However I have discovered another truth, or as the great Apostle Paul would say a higher law. We must understand that no matter how shaky we start life, it is much more important how we finish life. It is true that I am not the man that I was 22 years ago. There have been many changes, and they are more than just my expanding girth, receding hair line, and wrinkled face.

The rashness of youth has been replaced by the carefulness of experience. The cocky young man who had all the answers has discovered his great ignorance and now sits down to learn. And the more I learn the more I discover that what I know for certain is really very little.

 Well, this is not just a philosophical observation of past mistakes and a lament that I cannot go back and do it again. To the contrary it is the realization that as much as I value my past memories I must move on from here. We cannot allow past failure to dictate our future, but rather we learn to use them as tools of learning to improve ourselves.

Many blame the failures of their life on their birth status, parentage or poverty. This excuse for failure will fall on the deaf ears of those who have begun life in poverty and finished life with great wealth. The man born in slavery and died a leader of free men could hear the excuses for failure. I have observed that when our life is surveyed we are rarely evaluated by how we begin. If I begin well but somewhere along the way throw it all away then ultimately I will die a failed man. So have come to the conclusion that it is not important how I start but rather how I finish!

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

2 Timothy 4:7