We often consider ourselves to be the first link in the domino chain. But other times we consider ourselves to be the last in the chain. But the truth is more complicated than that because we are all part of a very long chain we did not create.

So you’re probably wondering what brought this random analogy to mind today. It all started for me when I came home from a meeting where I sat next to the pastor who commissioned me into ministry 35 years ago. And as I thought about him and his impact on me, I thought about his father, who prayed with me 10 years before that, as I returned to faith in Jesus. His father has long passed now; he is 90, and I am 66 and a great-grandfather.

The First Mistake

Everything we are and everything we do is built on a chain of choices that reach back before time. We are all standing on the shoulders and prayers of those who have gone before us. We are not the first in the chain. To illustrate, I am reminded of a testimony I heard from a missionary team returning from a closed country. They were young and excited, and for good reason, they had seen some remarkable answers to prayer on their trip.

But this is what made me smile as they reported. They completely failed to recognize the uncountable number of prayers and all the nameless people who have sacrificed for the people they reached, long before they ever had the idea to go, long before they ever prayed their first prayer. They felt they were the first in the chain, the first to go, and the first to pray, so obviously it was their prayer alone that God was answering.

This is the kind of mistake that excitement brings; it’s understandable, even heartwarming, and not very serious, unless they never learn to appreciate their place in the body. And I don’t just mean the body as it currently exists on earth, but the whole body that has been sacrificing and praying from the origin of the Church. This realization that we are just one small domino in a very long chain is both humbling and comforting at the same time. We are not alone; we are covered by the combined prayers of the church from the beginning, and we are covered by the prayers of Jesus before the Church, as we know it, was founded.

The Second Mistake

So we are not the first in the chain, but we are not the last either. I think every generation of Christians from the first until now has thought they were the last generation before the return of Christ. In my lifetime I have seen many false claims that Jesus is coming back. The funny thing about this misconception is that it is almost but not quite the right frame of mind. We should all be living as if Jesus might return at any moment; the mistake is trying to pin that down to a day or a year.

The most serious danger with living as if there is no tomorrow is this: if Jesus does not actually return today, you risk breaking the chain for the next generation. We need to hope Jesus returns today and live like he won’t return for a thousand years. There is an apocryphal story about Luther that became a trope for preachers in the middle of the 20th century, but it’s a good story regardless of whether it’s an exact quote of Luther. The story is about someone who supposedly asked Martin Luther what he would do if he knew Jesus was coming today. And according to the story, he said, “I’d plant a tree.”

The idea with this story is that our hope for the return of Jesus should always motivate us. But it should not motivate us to give up our calling and sit around waiting for Jesus; it should motivate us to work all the more until he arrives because time is precious. (At least for us mortals ;) The fact that we don’t know how much time we have should motivate us not to waste it.

A Better Perspective

In Hebrews 12 we have this reminder of how to think about those who have gone before us, the present age, and the hope of the age to come.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses,

With this in mind, we need to live not as the first domino or the last, but as one domino in a long chain that began with God and goes on to eternity. That does not make us less important in the chain because every domino’s job is to set the next domino in motion. Our hope of the coming age should motivate us not to sit back and wait, but rather to use whatever time we have to continue on the path that Jesus has laid out before us. Because we have no idea how much time we have.

This week

This week, let’s look up and realize that the powers of this world do not have the last say, nor do they have the power of eternity behind them or before them. Let’s look up and remember that Jesus is the king of kings and lord of lords now, and we are his hands and feet until the next age dawns, and then—on to eternity!

Let’s encourage each other in this hope today.

Have a great week!