In life, there are no rehearsals. There are only performances. We get one crack at this life and if we want to achieve something, if we want to live the sort of life that leaves a lasting legacy of love – then we need to live life on purpose and live it in the power of God.   Beginning with the End in Mind I want to share something with you today that changed my life. It was the turning point for me from a life of complete selfishness and self-indulgence to a life of doing the best I can with who I am and what I have to serve other people. When I read this short passage that I’m about to share with you, my whole world caved in because I knew ... I knew, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that my life was on the wrong course. You may have heard of the book "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" by Steven Covey. It’s been a bestseller for many years. I read it back in the early to mid-1990s, at a time when I was on a self-improvement venture, and it was habit number two in that book that brought me unstuck. Have a listen to what Covey writes: In your mind’s eye, see yourself going to the funeral of a loved one. Picture yourself driving to the funeral parlour or the chapel, parking the car and getting out. As you walk inside the building, you notice the flowers and the soft organ-music. You see the faces of friends and family you pass along the way. You feel the shared sorrow of losing, the joy of having known, that radiates from the hearts of the people there. As you walk down the front of the room, and you look inside the casket, you suddenly come face to face with yourself. This is your funeral three years from today. All these people have come to honour you; to express feelings of love and appreciation for your life. As you take a seat and wait for the service to begin, you look at the programme in your hand. There are to be four speakers: The first one is from your family, immediate and also extended – children, brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, who’ve come from all over the country to attend your funeral. The second speaker is one of your friends – someone who can give a sense of who you were as a person. The third speaker is from your work or profession, and the fourth speaker is from your church or some community organisation where you’ve been involved in serving. Now think deeply. What would you like each of these speakers to say about your life? What kind of husband, father, mother, would you like their words to reflect? What kind of son or daughter or cousin? What kind of friend? What kind of work associate? What character would you like them to have seen in you? What contributions, what achievements, would you want them to remember? Look carefully at the people around you. What difference would you like to have made in their lives? Covey goes on to make this point: The end of your life is, in fact, the best frame of reference (or criterion) by which everything else should be examined. By keeping that end clearly in mind, you can make certain that whatever you do on any particular day doesn’t violate the criteria that you’ve defined as supremely important, and that each day of your life contributes in a meaningful way to the vision that you have for your life as a whole. To begin with the end in mind means to start with a clear understanding of your destination. When I read those words for the first time, a couple of decades ago, I wept. I wept for a few days actually because I realised that my whole life, focused as it was on myself, was going to amount to nothing. I realised that the people at my funeral would not be able to say the things about me that I’d really wanted them to have said. I was in my mid thirties at the time, outwardly successful but at this turning-point in my life, I realised that all the things I’d been doing up to this point simply hadn’t contributed to the outcomes that (in my heart of hearts) I truly wanted, and the outcome that matters at the end is to have lived a life that will leave a lasting legacy of love, and I simply wasn’t doing the things that would have achieved that outcome. I imagined people would struggle to say anything good about me – not because I’d wasted my life; I wasn’t a failure; I was a success, but because the things I’d been doing day after day hadn’t been speaking love and showing love into the lives of others. That one realisation, as devastating as it was, was the starting-point for a completely changed life – not a perfect life by any means, but a complete change of focus, a complete change of direction; a decision to turn my life around and focus on doing things for others, and in so doing, discover the fulfilment and contentment that thus far had completely escaped me. Some of you are thinking, "Berni, how could you have completely missed out on the most important things?" and my answer would be because I, like so many people on this planet, had swallowed this lie that to be happy, you have to accumulate a lot of stuff. I was simply being successful, but at the wrong things: Things that at the funeral wouldn’t matter a toss. Friend, as we chat today and over the coming weeks about living the sort of life that will leave a lasting legacy of love in the people around you, I want to ask you: Have you really decided what is truly, truly important in your life? Is it getting the next promotion at the place where you work, or making sure that your children are getting enough of your time? Is it buying that next trinket or bauble that you can’t afford, or being part of changing the people around you for good? When those people get up to speak at your funeral, will they be able to say the sorts of things that you’d really (in your heart of hearts) like them to be able to say, or will they be struggling to find something nice to say about you? Maybe it’s time for you to sit down quietly on your own, over the next day or two, and write down the sorts of things that you would like those people to say at your funeral and then ask yourself, "Am I living that life, doing those things that will lead them to say the things I want them to say?" It’s kind of a gap analysis of what’s really important to you, versus how you’re actually living your life. Beginning with the end in mind, doing that exercise seriously, is in fact one of the most powerful things that you can ever do. I can honestly tell you it’s one of the two or three things I’ve done in my life that have brought around the greatest turnarounds that I’ve ever experienced. Beginning with the end in mind. Now interestingly Steven Covy’s a Mormon, so his theology and my theology are miles apart. Man, that’s an understatement! But at the end of the last chapter of his book, which can (I guess) be categorised as a self-help book, in a section he calls ‘A Personal Note’ he says this: I believe there are parts to the human nature that cannot be reached by either legislation or education, but require the power of God to deal with. I believe as human beings, we cannot perfect ourselves. And my friend, as great as the other parts of the book are, this one sentence unlocked the door to change and transformation in my life. Over the coming months, it caused me to seek out a relationship with Jesus (the Son of God), who came that I might have life in all its abundance. Like Covey, I will freely admit that there are many things I still struggle with in life, but through each victory, through each negative emotion dealt-with, through each new act of service that I’ve learnt and am learning, I’ve discovered the truth of that one sentence that Covey wrote at the end of his book. Ultimately, we ourselves are p...

Released on 18 Jul 2021