The Last Time

There will be a last time. A last time you will ever play a game with your children. A last time you will eat breakfast. A last time you will ever go to bed and sleep.

For most people they have already experienced the last time for any number of life’s ordinary experiences.

Their will be a last time you hug your mum, swim in the ocean, see a sunrise, sing a song. There will be a day when you give that last kiss goodbye.

Solomon once said that,

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven. (Ecclesiastes 3:1)

This much is true. But it’s also true that there is a last time, and a last season to every purpose under heaven.

To live without a thought for the last time is to live only half a life. It is to miss the beauty God has woven into each day (Ecclesiastes 3:11). It is to be ignorant of our own mortality.

You and I are dying.

Some of us will be here this time next year. Some of us will not.

Knowing this is not a call to reckless abandonment but a call to thankful gratitude for every good, glad and glorious moment of life that God has given to each of us.

Add what is true of us individually is also true of the world.

For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. (Romans 8:20-21)

There will be a last day for this world.

But it will not be an end: It will be a new beginning because what has been subjected to frustration has been subjected in hope.

Knowing this, your last cup of coffee, which could be the one you’re drinking now, is not a cause for despair. It is a call to enjoy it for all it’s worth. It’s a call to rejoice in hugs, highland heather, bassett hounds and hedge trimmers  – and all of it and in happy rest.

Resting in the knowledge that, come what may, our God is good.

[For] I know that there is nothing better for man than to rejoice and do good while he lives and that every man should eat and drink and find satisfaction in all his labour—this is the gift of God. (Ecclesiastes 3:12-13)

A grateful heart enjoys the gift. Each of them, right down to the last.