The shortest chapter

This evening we had dinner with friends before out trip back to Kenya tomorrow.  It's always great to eat and visit with close friends, but tonight we got on the topic of life and its brevity.  My friend said, "Life is so short."  And with that we began to discuss David's words in Psalms where he described our lives as a vapor, a mist that's only here for a moment.

It feels, if we are honest, as if life is far too short and then quickly over, but the comment came up, as we visited, that this life for the Christian is simply the shortest chapter in the story of our lives.  Our lives continue for many chapters to follow...it's just that this first chapter will take very few pages in the book compared to the chapters that follow.

And yet, as surprising as it sounds...what we do, what we decide in this shortest chapter of our lives will determine how the rest of the story unfolds.  All of life, all of eternity will flow from our very shortest chapter.

It would seem then that we would see the bigger picture of a life and its decisions that extend far into eternity, but most of us only live for the first chapter...as if this shortest of all chapters is all there is.

How sad that we, the authors of an amazing story would think that it's only a one chapter book.  

Life here is short, it is the shortest chapter in lives that will stretch far into eternity, and it does affect all the chapters that follow, but never imagine that life is only a one chapter book.  It's simply true that how we live out this chapter affects all that follow.....