Looking Back on Half a Century...

I'm not particularly either bragging or embarrassed by my age; I just want to put up that title because it sounds cool. Any time we reach a milestone in our life we can look back over all the events and people that got us there. Still, the main reason we make milestone birthdays is that God has graciously allowed us to keep on living.

When I compare the 50 years I have lived with the grand sweep of redemption history, though, I realize how young I still am. Thousands of years have passed since Adam and Eve were sent away from the garden, and the story continued through Abraham, David, Jesus, and Paul, among others. Even just accounting for the writing of the Bible, we have over 1500 years to account for. The story from the fall of man, through all the steps of God's plan, and on to the prophecy John received of the end, is an overwhelming revelation of the grace of God.

Yet the story continued after the Bible was completed. Through Irenaeus, Athanasius, Augustine, Gregory, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Warfield, and to our present day, through generations of men and women, and a much longer list of leaders, teachers, and scholars than I have written here, the people of God continue to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ and look forward to His return.

I think this may be why I find church history so compelling. Studying the way God has worked over the past 2000 years tells me the story in which I now play a part. I may be a pastor of a particular church at a particular time, serving the Lord in my small corner of the world, but I am a member of a church that is grand and glorious, and which has an amazing future in store.

So I can say, looking back on half a century in the church (yes, I was born on a Monday and in church the next Sunday) I have seen God at work. I have seen joy and sorrow, victory and defeat, success and struggle. Through it all, I have seen the hand of God at work. Should He give me another half-century, or should He give me but a few days, I want to keep serving and growing, and learning more about God, His Word, and the story He has told through the millenia of time, until the day Jesus comes to begin a new story with us for all eternity.