By: Pastor Tracy Gill
pastortracygill@gmail.com
I got a chance to spend a weekend at the beach recently. As I strolled along the shoreline, I couldn’t help but gaze toward the horizon. The sky was sprinkled with clouds, some of them shaped like craters, and in the distance the two seemed to melt right into the ocean.
As hard as I tried to separate the two with my eyes, I couldn’t find a line. As far as I could see, there was water. And as far as I could see, there was sky. Yet, there was no distinction between the two.
The sky and the ocean are completely different, even when, from our perspective, it is difficult to tell where one ends and one begins.
It made me think about life and death. There is a beginning to this earthly life, and there is an end. That is something we can all agree on. Both matter. But what struck me most is that so much is determined by what happens in the middle.
For those of us who believe in God, death is not truly the end. We believe there is life after death. But the pathway we take toward eternity is shaped by what we choose to do in the middle.
And there is something powerful about the middle. The middle is where all our choices lie. The middle is where we love. It is where we serve. It is where we grow. It is where we forgive.
Jesus hung on a cross, the middle cross. He gave His life for you and for me so that we could have eternal life.
So while we may not always know where one season ends and another begins, we do have a choice about how we live in the in-between.
Choose life in the middle, so that your end is secure!
You cannot change your beginning, and you do not know when your earthly journey will end. But today, you can choose how you will live in the middle.
John 10:10 “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”
