The Dash In Between

I recently attended a funeral for man of 55 years old. He was taking a shower one morning and just dropped right there. Heart stopped. It was his time. The eulogist talked about the man’s life and how each of us will end up with a dash between the years we visited the earth.

It occurred to me that it doesn’t matter how long we live, that dash is the same size, same length, and same font of boldness. Whether we live on the earth for 5 years or 105 years, the dash is the same.

What the dash doesn’t describe is the life that is lived in between. We all have the same ability to make a difference, but it is in the daily choices we make that determine the life in between.

Mother Teresa lived to be 87, while Adolf Hitler lived to be 56. Each had an impact on the world. One worked for peace while the other worked to destroy. One lived for God, the other for power. Both had an impact on many nations and many lives. Can you tell that from the dash? What do you think God sees in that dash?

I had a brother that lived three days. There is still a dash that delineates the time he spent here before he moved on to heaven. He made an impact on hearts as well, a quiet silent impact, but one just the same.

There are times that many of us believe that our lives are so insignificant that we do not make a difference on this earth. We believe the ugly lie that says unless we become a Mother Teresa or an Adolf Hitler, we have no impact on history or anyone else. That is the ultimate lie that the Deceiver wants you to believe. That makes his job easier. He can chip away at our self worth so much easier if we think we are insignificant.

He wants us to believe that no amount of selflessness will make a difference and that our existence is irrelevant.

But if we choose Truth, then we choose victory. It may be the silent victory of a suburban mother who chooses to nurture her children and grow them into loving, caring, believers of God who will save their souls. It may be the public victory of writing a best seller that touches the lives of unknown souls that leads them to God. For many of us, it will be somewhere in between. But I challenge you to consider that the quiet, subtle role of Elizabeth raising John the Baptist was just as important as the role of Mahatma Gandhi.

God creates each of us with purpose. God creates each of us with free will. God creates each of us with love. We are not insignificant to Him. Every soul matters.

And it is everything in between that tiny dash that makes us who we are. All the love we give freely or all the hate we spin daily affects those around us. But it is our choice.

In the end, all the world will see is the dash between the short years we are here on the earth. But in the end, God does not see that speck of dash; He sees a soul so precious to Him that He gave his only Son. So how will you spend your dash?