A Dot On The Wall

My husband and I taught a 5th and 6th grade Sunday school class at our church for several years. We still worship with many of our former students, some are parents themselves. We used many teaching tools through the years, everything from recorded stories to games and crafts were utilized to help teach God’s Word. One thing my husband did well was using visuals for the lessons. When it came to trying to help a young person understand eternity, he would take a pencil and walk over to the wall, putting a dot in the middle somewhere. No one could see the small pencil mark from their seats, and he would explain that the pencil dot marked our lifetime here on earth, and the rest of that wall represented the time we will spend in eternity.

While many of our lessons brought energy and fun from our class, this point always led to quiet, with students searching the white wall for that mark that represented forever. Often, we didn’t know the impact our lessons had on our class, but with the dot on the wall, we did. When one of our girls sent us a kind note to thank us for her wedding gift years later, she mentioned how she often thought of that lesson still.

We all have a date with eternity. We don’t know when it will come, but the bible promises us that it will. Realizing how transient is our time on earth gives us an appreciation for the gift that our life is, for the importance of using our time here to honor and serve God, and the truth that we cannot measure our time in eternity. The choice to serve God and put our trust in Christ, receiving salvation through Him, is the most valuable and longest-lasting decision we will ever make.

Lord, make me to know my end and (to appreciate) the measure of my days- what it is; let me know and realize how frail I am (how transient is my stay here). Psalm 39:4 (Amplified Bible)