That Day Will Come

"Has it really been twenty-eight years?" she asked -- more of herself than those gathered at her retirement ceremony. Decades of conflicts and triumphs, of paperwork piles and project deadlines, of exciting new tasks and the lumbering routine of others now blended as a distant fog in a half-forgotten dream. She wondered aloud how the years could have passed as only a brief moment.

After the framed certificate, the engraved plaque, the punch and cookies in the foyer, life will move on. Tomorrow, younger employees will step into her many different roles and the organization will continue with business as usual.

"I thought this day would never come," she tried to smile. "But here it is."

While Linda spoke, my mind drifted. How many times have I said the same of my own dreams and hopes, "I thought this day would never come"? How many important events passed before I knew they were close upon me? Birthdays, graduations, weddings, births, more weddings, more births. My life has moved almost seamlessly from sunrise to sunset, seasons to years, anticipating -- with barely muted excitement -- one milestone and then another. All the while I've been too busy living life to notice the calendar pages disappearing like pebbles into a canyon.

I don't often think about my final milestone. I hope to enjoy many more graduations, weddings and births before I start thinking much about that particular day. Yet, when it comes, will the decades of my life also seem as a brief moment? The conflicts, the joys, the deadlines, the routines . . . life will move on without me and only what I have done for Jesus Christ will matter.

As Linda received her plaque, I wondered what kind of plaque I will receive when I stand before the Great Audience awaiting each of us. Will it be engraved with the names of those whom I have touched during my service for the Master? Or will it be an empty testimony of misplaced priorities during my earth-bound journey?

As I draw near to my fiftieth birthday, those questions whisper with increasing urgency from the corners of my thoughts. Life really is shorter than I realize, and everything I now hold dear -- money, popularity, passions, career -- on that day will stand like charred timbers after a house fire. Little wonder that the Psalmist's prayer becomes more meaningful to me each time I read it: "So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom" (Psalm 90:12).

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