NO EXPIRATION DATE (Psalm 146)

Don't put your life in the hands of experts who nothing of life, of salvation life.
Mere humans don't have what it takes; when they die, their projects die with them.
Instead, get help from the God of Jacob, put your hope in God and know real blessing. (Psalm 146:3-5, MSG)

I need these verses at this point in my life. My fear, staring down the year to my next birthday? That I have fewer years and worse health to accomplish my life dreams.

I was thinking like a "mere human," as if my projects and dreams would die with me. As if my life consisted solely from the minutes from birth in 1954 until my death whenever it comes.

I have more than a mere mortal's life. I have salvation life, eternal life. I know that. I count on it. I look forward to it. I look forward to reuniting with my family who have gone on before.

If the question was put to me, I would even admit that my life will have ripple effects across the future. Not only my son and my grandchildren, but also my students. Children I taught for five years are reaching adulthood. Part of their impact on the body of Christ will reflect on me..

And those precious souls whom I have had a part in leading to the Lord. Them too.

But those are people. Not "projects."

My writing definitely qualifies as a project. And unless a publisher decides to commission another author to complete an unfinished manuscript at my death, my project will die with me.

But my projects--the body of my work--will outlive me. Oh, the Psalmist come out and say so, but it's implied. It's the positive implied by the negative. Life in place of death.

I have written curriculum used by thousands of Sunday school teachers around the world. At one time over 300 thousand copies of my books had sold. There must be more by now.

Any difference any of that has made in those teachers, students, readers--all of that traces back to me (and those who trained me, of course)

My books may not be read a hundred years from now. (I sincerely doubt it.) But they'll have had generations to send ripples in widening circles.

My sixty-plus years on this earth are only the beginning.