On the Sunday Mrs Akande handed over the women’s fellowship, she arrived at church forty minutes early carrying a blue box file. She had founded the fellowship thirty-one years before, with six women meeting on the veranda of the old church building in Ibadan, and she had led it ever since. Now there were more than two hundred members, a welfare fund, a hospital visitation team and a scholarship scheme for girls in secondary school. Most of the records were in that box file, in her careful handwriting.
She was seventy-nine. Nobody had asked her to step down. Many of the women had begged her not to. But four years earlier she had gone to the pastor and said, “I want to choose my successor while I still have my senses, and I want to train her while I still have my strength.” She had chosen Tari, a quiet civil servant in her forties who had served on the welfare team for a decade. For four years Tari had sat beside her at every planning meeting, visited every hospital ward with her and learned where every naira in the welfare fund came from and where it went.
That morning, in front of the whole congregation, Mrs Akande placed the box file in Tari’s hands. The pastor prayed for them both. Then Mrs Akande walked down from the front of the church, past the seat she had occupied for three decades, and sat in the back row.
She told me afterwards that the handover was only one of several things she had done that year. She had written her will, properly, with a lawyer, and explained it to her children around the dining table. She had given her late husband’s theology books to the library of a Bible college in Ogbomoso. And she had travelled to Ilorin to see her younger sister, to whom she had barely spoken in eleven years, and asked her forgiveness for something she had said at their mother’s funeral.
“My father died without a will,” she said. “His children fought over his house for twelve years. I watched the fellowship he started in his village die within a year of his burial, because he never trained anyone. I decided I would not leave that kind of mess behind me.” She paused. “I thought I was getting ready to die.”
That was four years ago. She is eighty-three now. And she is still sitting in the back row.
The end shapes the middle
Most of us do not think much about the end of our assignment until it is close. When we are young, the end seems impossibly far away. In middle life, we are too busy to think about it. And then, quite suddenly, it is near, and we discover that many of the things that would have helped us finish well needed to be done years before.
Moses, who lived to a great age and saw a whole generation die in the wilderness, wrote a psalm about this:
The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away. Who knoweth the power of thine anger? even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath. So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.
Moses is unsentimental. Seventy years, perhaps eighty, and even the strong years are full of labour and sorrow. Then “it is soon cut off, and we fly away.” Life is short, and it ends.
But notice where the psalm goes with that truth. It does not end in despair. It ends in a prayer: “So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.” To number our days means to reckon with their limit, to live with an honest awareness that they will run out. And the result of that reckoning is wisdom. A person who knows that his days are numbered makes different choices in ordinary years. He is less likely to waste them, postpone reconciliation, neglect his family, or assume that someone else will sort out what he leaves behind.
That is what this teaching is about. Finishing well is not mainly about the last few months of a life or a ministry. It is shaped by the choices we make in all the years before. And it includes two things we will look at closely: enduring faith, and responsibilities handed on wisely. At the same time, we must hold all of this with humility, because the length of our life is not ours to set.
Poured out like a drink offering
The clearest picture of finishing well in the New Testament comes from Paul’s last letter. He was in prison in Rome for the second time, and this time he did not expect to be released. Many of his companions had left him. He wrote to Timothy, his son in the faith:
For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.
“I am now ready to be offered.” The word Paul uses means to be poured out as a drink offering. In the Old Testament sacrificial system, a drink offering of wine was poured out alongside the main sacrifice (Numbers 15:5-10). Paul had used the same image years earlier when he wrote to the Philippians: “if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy, and rejoice with you all” (Philippians 2:17). Now he sees his whole life being poured out to God, to the last drop.
“The time of my departure is at hand.” The word for departure was used of a ship loosing its moorings or a soldier striking his tent to move on. Paul does not describe death as an ending so much as a setting out.
Then come three short statements, each in a tense that describes a completed action with lasting results. “I have fought a good fight.” The image is of an athletic contest, a struggle requiring effort and discipline. “I have finished my course.” The course is the race track, the route marked out for him. “I have kept the faith.” He has guarded what was entrusted to him, the gospel itself, and his own trust in Christ, without abandoning either.
Notice that Paul does not say he has accomplished everything he wanted. There were churches he had not visited and places he had not reached. He was dying in chains, his plans unfinished. But his course was finished. The race God had set for him had been run.
And then he looks beyond the finish line. “Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness.” The crown is reserved, kept, waiting. And it is not for apostles only: “not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.” Every believer who loves the Lord’s return is included. Finishing well is not reserved for the famous. It is offered to every ordinary believer who keeps faith to the end.
None of these things move me
A few years before that letter, on his way to Jerusalem, Paul stopped at the port of Miletus and sent for the elders of the church at Ephesus. He had spent three years with them. Now he believed he would never see them again:
And now, behold, I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there: Save that the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me. But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God.
“Neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy.” Paul could not see exactly what awaited him. The Spirit had warned him of chains and affliction. He was never reckless about his life, yet neither did he treat it as the most precious thing he had. The most precious thing was finishing his course, and doing it with joy.
Notice how he describes his work: “the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus.” It was received. It was not his invention or his possession. It had been given to him by Christ, and one day he would give account of it. That is a liberating way to think about any assignment. Your role in your family, your business, your church or your profession was received. It was never yours to clutch. That makes it easier to hand on when the time comes.
And that is exactly what Paul does at Miletus. The rest of his speech is a handover. He reminds the elders how he lived among them. Then he charges them: “Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers” (Acts 20:28). He warns them of dangers to come. And he entrusts them to a keeper greater than himself: “And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up” (Acts 20:32).
Then he knelt and prayed with them all, and they wept and embraced him and walked with him to the ship. Paul had not built a ministry that depended on him. He had built people who could carry it on, and he left them in God’s hands.
PunchlineYour assignment was received from the Lord. That is why you can give yourself to it fully, and why you can hand it on without clutching.
Putting some of your honour on another
The Old Testament gives us a beautiful example of a leader handing on responsibility well. Near the end of his life, Moses learned that he would not enter the promised land. His response was to think about the people:
And Moses spake unto the LORD , saying, Let the LORD , the God of the spirits of all flesh, set a man over the congregation, Which may go out before them, and which may go in before them, and which may lead them out, and which may bring them in; that the congregation of the LORD be not as sheep which have no shepherd. And the LORD said unto Moses, Take thee Joshua the son of Nun, a man in whom is the spirit, and lay thine hand upon him; And set him before Eleazar the priest, and before all the congregation; and give him a charge in their sight. And thou shalt put some of thine honour upon him, that all the congregation of the children of Israel may be obedient.
Moses’ first concern was that “the congregation of the LORD be not as sheep which have no shepherd.” He was thinking beyond his own lifetime. And God answered by naming Joshua, a man who had served alongside Moses for forty years, from the battle with Amalek in Exodus 17 to the tent of meeting, where he stayed even after Moses left (Exodus 33:11). Joshua had been prepared through decades of close service.
Then notice the instructions. Moses was to lay his hand on Joshua publicly, before the priest and the whole congregation, and give him a charge in their sight. And he was to “put some of thine honour upon him.” Moses was to share his authority while he was still alive, so that the people would learn to follow Joshua before Moses was gone. The result is recorded at the end of Deuteronomy: “Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom; for Moses had laid his hands upon him: and the children of Israel hearkened unto him” (Deuteronomy 34:9).
Many leaders find this hard. They fear being displaced. They delay training anyone until it is too late, or they choose a successor and then refuse to share any real responsibility with him. When they die or are forced to step aside, the work collapses or fractures. I have seen churches split, family businesses disappear and community projects die within months of their founder’s death, simply because no one was prepared to carry them.
Paul’s instruction to Timothy describes the healthy pattern: “the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also” (2 Timothy 2:2). Four generations in one verse: Paul, Timothy, faithful men, others also.
There is a sad contrast in the life of King Hezekiah. When the prophet Isaiah told him that his descendants would one day be carried into Babylon, Hezekiah’s response was strangely complacent: “Is it not good, if peace and truth be in my days?” (2 Kings 20:19). As long as trouble did not arrive in his own lifetime, he seemed content. Finishing well refuses that attitude. It cares about what happens after we are gone.
Handing on wisely is practical as well as spiritual. “A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children’s children” (Proverbs 13:22). For many of us, that means writing a proper will and making sure the people who matter know where things are. It means not leaving our families to fight over land and houses for years in the courts. In business, it means training others and documenting how things work. In ministry, it means identifying and developing successors long before we need them. These are not unspiritual matters. They are part of loving people beyond our own lifetime.
Those who began well
Scripture is honest about people who did not finish well, and their stories are written as warnings.
Solomon began with great humility, asking God for wisdom to govern His people. But “it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods” (1 Kings 11:4). His decline did not happen in a day. It grew out of decades of choices: alliances made through marriage, compromises tolerated, a heart gradually divided.
King Uzziah was a capable and godly ruler for many years. Chronicles tells us that “he was marvellously helped, till he was strong. But when he was strong, his heart was lifted up to his destruction” (2 Chronicles 26:15-16). Success made him proud, and pride led him to overstep his calling. He ended his life as a leper, living in a separate house.
What these stories teach is that finishing well is not guaranteed by starting well. The choices of the ordinary years matter. Small compromises, unchecked pride, neglected relationships and slowly cooling devotion can accumulate quietly until they shape the final season.
But Scripture also gives us a story of grace at the end. Years earlier, Paul had refused to take John Mark on a journey because Mark had deserted him, and the disagreement split Paul from Barnabas (Acts 15:37-39). In his last letter, writing from prison, Paul asks for Mark by name: “Take Mark, and bring him with thee: for he is profitable to me for the ministry” (2 Timothy 4:11). Somewhere in the intervening years, that relationship had been restored. Finishing well includes the relationships we mend before the end.
If you are reading this and you know that your later years have not gone well, hear this clearly: it is not too late for grace. God restores. The thief on the cross turned to Christ in his final hours, and Jesus promised him paradise. Confession, reconciliation and renewed faithfulness are possible in any season while there is breath.
Looking unto the Finisher
The writer of Hebrews, after the great roll call of faith in chapter 11, turns to his readers with this exhortation:
Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us , and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.
“Seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses.” The witnesses are the men and women of chapter 11. Some interpreters see them as spectators watching our race. Others see them mainly as those who bear witness, by their lives, to what faith can endure. Either way, they surround us as evidence that the race can be finished.
“Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us.” A runner does not carry extra weight. Some weights are sins; some are simply things that slow us down: unnecessary commitments, possessions, grudges, distractions. Finishing well involves regularly laying these aside.
“Let us run with patience the race that is set before us.” The word for patience is endurance, the steady staying power of a long-distance runner. And notice that the race is “set before us.” We do not choose its route or its length. God sets it.
Then the most important phrase: “Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.” The word author can mean pioneer or founder, the one who goes first and opens the way. The word finisher means the one who brings something to completion. Jesus began our faith, and He will complete it. Paul says the same: “he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6).
This is the heart of finishing well under grace. We do run, and we must run with endurance. But we do not finish by our own strength. We finish by looking to the One who has already finished His course, who “endured the cross, despising the shame,” and is now seated at the right hand of God. When you are weary, the writer says, “consider him.” Your perseverance is sustained by His.
The length of the race is not ours
NuggetThere is an important humility in all of this. We can make wise choices that shape our final season, but we cannot decide when that season will come.
Some believers are given long lives. Moses lived to a hundred and twenty, “his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated” (Deuteronomy 34:7). Others are not. James the brother of John, one of the inner circle of the twelve, was killed by Herod early in the life of the church (Acts 12:2). Stephen was stoned as a young man. Both finished their course. It was simply shorter than others’.
Jesus Himself, at about thirty-three, could say to His Father, “I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do” (John 17:4). Finishing is measured by completing what was given, not by the number of years.
Moses saw the promised land from Mount Nebo but did not enter it. “I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over thither” (Deuteronomy 34:4). Some of us, too, will not see the completion of things we gave our lives to. That is not failure. Of David, Paul said, “after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep” (Acts 13:36). That is a fine epitaph for any believer: he served his own generation.
So we should neither presume on long life nor become morbid about death. Take good care of your body. See a doctor regularly. Rest. These are part of stewardship. But hold your days in open hands. “LORD, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is; that I may know how frail I am” (Psalm 39:4). That prayer is not gloomy. It is wise.
Choices in ordinary years
What does this mean for someone who is thirty, or forty-five, or sixty?
Keep the faith daily. Paul’s “I have kept the faith” was the sum of thousands of ordinary days. Your daily reading, prayer, worship and obedience are how the faith is kept.
Keep short accounts. Do not leave reconciliation for the end. If there is a sibling, a parent, a former friend or a colleague with whom things are broken, take a step now while you can.
Train people early. Whatever you are responsible for, begin now to share it. Let others watch you, help you and eventually lead alongside you. Put some of your honour on them.
Put your affairs in order. Write a will. Keep records others can understand. Tell your family where important documents are. These are acts of love.
PunchlineLay aside weights. Every few years, look at your commitments and possessions and ask what is slowing you down.
And keep looking to Jesus. The race is long, and you will grow weary. Consider Him.
The psalmist prayed in old age: “Now also when I am old and grayheaded, O God, forsake me not; until I have shewed thy strength unto this generation” (Psalm 71:18). And he promised that the righteous “shall still bring forth fruit in old age” (Psalm 92:14). The final season can be fruitful. It is shaped by the ones before it.
When I visited Mrs Akande last month, she was sitting on her veranda with her Bible open and a list of names beside it. “The women I pray for,” she explained. Tari’s name was at the top.
The fellowship has grown since the handover. Tari has started things Mrs Akande never thought of, including a programme for young widows. Some of the older women grumbled at first. Mrs Akande told them firmly that Tari was their leader now, and that she would hear no complaints in her back row. When Tari asks for advice, she gives it. When she does not, Mrs Akande keeps quiet and prays.
Her sister from Ilorin visits every Christmas now. Her children know exactly what is in the will and why. And she has no idea how many more years she has.
“When I gave Tari the file,” she said, “I thought I was preparing to die. I was wrong. I was preparing to finish. They are not the same thing. Some things I have finished already. Others I am still running. And whenever the Lord calls me, I want Him to find me running, not carrying a box file nobody else can read.”
She laughed, and then she grew serious. “Tell the young ones to start now. You cannot do all of this at the end.”
So I am telling you. Number your days, and let that make you wise. Keep the faith. Mend what is broken. Train the ones who will come after you. Lay aside the weights. And look to Jesus, the author and finisher of your faith, who will see you to the end of whatever race He has set before you.
Teaching Companion
For Reflection
- If your assignment in your family, work or church ended this year, what would you leave behind? What would be left undone?
- Is there a responsibility you are carrying that no one else has been prepared to carry? What would it take to begin sharing it?
- Are there relationships you are leaving for “later” that you should mend now?
- What weights might you need to lay aside in order to run with endurance?
- How does knowing that Jesus is “the finisher of our faith” change the way you think about finishing well?
This Week
Set aside an hour this week to “number your days”. Write down the main responsibilities God has entrusted to you. Beside each one, write the name of someone who could carry it if you could not, and one step you could take to prepare them. Then make a second list of practical matters: is your will written, do your family know where important documents are, is there a relationship you need to mend? Choose one item from each list and act on it before the end of the month.
A Prayer
Lord, teach me to number my days, that I may apply my heart unto wisdom. Thank You for the race You have set before me, and for the grace that has carried me so far. Help me to keep the faith in ordinary days, to lay aside every weight, and to run with endurance. Give me the humility to train others and share what You have entrusted to me, and the courage to mend what is broken while there is time. My times are in Your hand; I do not know how long my race will be. Keep my eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of my faith, so that whenever You call me, You find me faithful. In His name, Amen.
Truth received brings freedom. Truth believed establishes the heart.
Scripture quotations are from the King James Version. · Illustrations using first names only are composites unless stated otherwise.