I like to start my day with the end in mind. My wife Cami likes to laugh at me because I am an extreme planner. In the morning I get up and while I am still on my first cup of coffee, I am asking questions about what today should look like. What things do I need to do today? Who do I need to meet with? What places do I need to go? What times do I already have commitments? I am a planner through and through. These questions I ask each day, they help me look at the 16-18 hours ahead of me and make the most of them. I think about my day with the end in mind, trying to make sure I accomplish everything I need to on a given day.
I think that starting with the end in mind is a perspective God wants us to have. Our days become busy with activities and obligations that are good, but without a long-term perspective we can find ourselves very busy, but not on-track with God’s plans and desires for our life. In order to actually give a majority of our time to the right things, we need to live with the end in mind.
What is the end?
Admittedly, I don’t have a great way to explain or label the things we should do each day to live with the end in mind. But, when I am trying to figure out how I should live or what I should give my time towards, I look at the parable of the Talents from Matthew 25.
In that parable, the Master goes away for a time, and leaves his servants with certain talents. After some time, the Master comes back and each servant then accounts for what he/she did with their talents. To those who took their talents and used them to produce good things for the Master, they were able to look to the Master and hear him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
Now, I wont claim to know what the end goal is supposed to be for you. In fact, I think while we all have a common (Universal) end goal we are moving towards (eternity with Him), I think we also each have a specific (Unique) end goal we should be moving towards. The uniqueness is the reality that we each have different gifts, talents, abilities and time. I can’t tell you exactly what those things are supposed to be used for in your life…but I can tell you that to live with the end in mind means this:
To use all of my God given gifts, talents, abilities and time in such a way that when I get to look into the eyes of my creator, I will get to hear Him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”
