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Finishing Well: The Time You Have Left

I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.
2 Timothy 4:7 (KJV)

 

The longer you walk with God, the easier it gets to start doing the math on yourself.

Adding up the years you feel like you wasted before you ever got serious with Him, wondering if the best of your walk is already behind you.

I've heard it worded a hundred different ways, but it usually lands on one honest line: I just want to keep growing with the time I have left.

If that's sitting on you at all, let me hand you something better to stand on.

Why do we treat the years we've got left like leftovers, instead of the very thing God still wants to use?

Jesus told a story that lands right on this.

A man hires workers for his field all day long. Some show up at sunup, some not till the last hour of daylight.

"And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle, and saith unto them, Why stand ye here all the day idle?"

Matthew 20:6 (KJV)

When the day's over, he pays the ones who came in that final hour the same exact wage as the ones who'd been out there since dawn.

God is not docking your reward for the hours you missed. He's paying out of who He is, not out of when you showed up.

Those years before you knew Him, the seasons you'd take back if you could, none of it disqualifies you from the part of the field He's handing you right now.

The eleventh-hour worker still got called in off the curb and still got handed the full day's wage.

The only worker who missed out was the one who stayed home because he figured it was too late to bother.

Now go back and watch when the early crew actually started grumbling.

Not while they were working. Not when they got their pay.

They were dead content with their wage right up until they saw what the last guys got handed.

Nothing about their pay changed. Their eyes changed.

The same wage that felt like a blessing an hour earlier suddenly felt like a slap, and the only thing that moved was their perspective.

That's exactly how we lose the faith.

Not when the situation gets worse, but the second we start measuring it against somebody else's.

You were doing fine until you looked over and compared. Then the same life you were thanking God for last week started feeling like a raw deal.

Comparison slides your eyes off the Savior and onto the situation.

You can't keep the faith while your eyes are locked on the wrong thing.

That's the whole reason Paul could say he kept it, writing that top verse from a prison cell at the end of his life, knowing his execution was close.

"I have finished my course."

Hear what he didn't say. He didn't say I finished early, or I had it all figured out from the start.

He ran the course that was his, eyes on the One waiting at the finish line, and never wasted a step comparing it to the lane next to him.

You don't get judged on the race you wish you'd run. You get to run the one still in front of you, however much track is left.

Paul could write all that because Somebody finished the real race first.

Hanging on that cross, Jesus said three words, it is finished, and He meant every ounce of the debt.

He went down into a grave carrying your sin and walked back out three days later with it paid in full.

You're not running to win the prize. You're running because He already won it and stuck your name on it.

There's a charge in Scripture for exactly this stretch of road.

"Redeeming the time, because the days are evil."

Ephesians 5:16 (KJV)

Redeem means buy back. You can't buy back the years that are already gone, that ship has sailed. The time you've got left, though, today, this season, that's still on the table for something that actually matters.

The only way to finish badly is to sit down before the race is over.

Hear me, whatever season you're in.

The grandmother praying over her whole family is in the race. The man who got saved at sixty-five is in it too.

There is no retirement from walking with Jesus. The course runs all the way to the finish line, and He keeps you on your feet the whole way there.

Here's how to run the stretch that's left today:

1. Quit grading your walk by when it started.

The wage was never tied to the hour you clocked in.

Trade the regret over the early years for the field He's putting in front of you now.

2. Stop comparing your course to anybody else's.

The second you look over at their lane, your eyes come off the Savior and land on the situation.

Run your race. Keep your eyes on Him, and the comparison loses its grip.

3. Keep the faith all the way to the line.

Finishing well isn't a sprint at the end, it's just not quitting.

Stay in the Word, stay near God's people, and let Him carry you the rest of the way home.

PRAYER

Almighty God, I've spent way too long adding up the years I think I threw away instead of the ones You've still got planned for me.

You pay out of Your own goodness, not by what hour I finally clocked in, and that changes everything.

Today I'm done calling myself behind, and I'm done looking over at everybody else's lane.

There's still a stretch of road out in front of me, and it's got my name on it, not anybody else's.

Every time my eyes slide off You and onto my situation, pull them back before comparison talks me out of the faith.

Keep me on my feet all the way to that finish line, right into Your arms.

In Jesus' precious name. Amen.