Chris Turner
I recently attended a memorial service for a teenager. The speaker mentioned the person’s birth and death dates, then spoke for 15 minutes about the dash in the middle.
I’ve never given the dash much thought beyond being a device connecting two fixed points on a timeline. However, the speaker’s comments amplified the dash, not the dates. The dash is the most important part of the equation. The dash is the life.
For some, their dashes have reached their terminus. For those reading this column, the dash is the story being written, with an unknown number of pages remaining to fill.
The service was a blend of sadness and celebration, a sobering reminder that life is fleeting. I recalled Ecclesiastes 7:2-4, which tells us, “Better to spend your time at funerals than at parties, for sadness has a refining influence on us. A wise person thinks a lot about death, while a fool thinks only about having a good time.”
Funerals and memorial services jolt us into thinking about life’s fragility, its value, and whether someone standing over our caskets will one day say, “It was a life well lived.”
A thousand thoughts converged in my mind and produced a question I reflected on for the rest of the day — and still am almost two weeks later: “What am I doing with my dash?”
It is a consuming question. Your dash is one of more than 8 billion dashes currently living in the world. At times, life can feel like an inflatable raft drifting aimlessly across a vast ocean. Yet God does not leave you lost or adrift. Through Scripture, He provides reliable charts to guide you faithfully from one end of the dash to the other.
Here are five realities about the dash as we consider the brevity of life:
Your life was an intentional act of God.
“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb” (Psalm 139:13). You are no accident. Since the dawn of creation, billions of people have lived, and God has handcrafted each one with intentionality. Your dash entered the world as one of one — unique in all of existence.
Your purpose was established by your Creator.
The old catechism asks, “What is the chief end of man?” The answer: “To glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” This truth is rooted in Scripture: “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31).
There is no ambiguity about the purpose of your dash. You exist to bring honor, praise and glory to God through your words, actions, thoughts and affections, reflecting His greatness to a world that often denies its Creator.
Your response is to pursue God’s purpose through faith and discipleship.
It begins with John 3:16 — repentance and belief by faith. It continues with Matthew 16:24, as Christ calls you to deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Him. Some days obedience feels natural; other days it requires determination to keep the dash on course. Thankfully, the Holy Spirit faithfully guides you.
Your responsibility is stewardship.
Stewardship is the careful management of the life God has entrusted to you. “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace” (1 Peter 4:10).
Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 25 reinforces this responsibility. Stewardship encompasses everything — time, money, mind, worship and the causes to which you devote your effort. Every aspect of your dash is under your care.
Your life is preparation for eternity.
Romans 8:28 assures us that all things work together for your good, so in God’s economy, the highs and lows, the suffering and triumphs, and the pursuit of Christ — everything — is intended to conform you to the image of Christ so that you might stand before Him blameless in eternity.
All of us carry regrets and wish we had handled portions of our dash differently. Nothing can be changed about the dash that’s already been drawn. Only God knows how much dash remains before it reaches its final date.
But while there is still time — while the dash continues — the question remains worth asking: What are you doing with your dash? B&R
