This is a follow-up to the article “Finishing Well.”
Age has a way of either blurring one’s view of life or sharpening one’s vision. I am, I hope, appropriately cautious about my own heart and mind growing clouded, callous, and cold to God and his glory. I want to relish the lessons of faith learned in the furnace of trial more deeply now than I ever have.
But I can feel the drift toward complacency and coasting. My soul cries in alarm: “No, Lord! I plead with Thee for grace to enflame and burn more brightly for Jesus.” But my inner man is such broken and failed reality.
Years ago, Dr. Robertson McQuilkin, the third president of Columbia Bible College and Seminary (now Columbia International University), wrote this prayer. It was then, and it remains now, one of the most searching prayers about finishing in faithfulness I have ever found. I place it before you in the hope that you will join me in praying this no matter what your age.
I am guessing you will agree with me, when you have thoughtfully read or prayed this prayer, that it is anchoring, clarifying, and refreshingly focused. Oh, I ask our Lord to get me home before dark!
Let Me Get Home Before Dark
It’s sundown, Lord.
The shadows of my life stretch back
into the dimness of the years long spent.
I fear not death, for that grim foe betrays himself at last,
thrusting me forever into life:
Life with You, unsoiled and free.
But I do fear.
I fear the Dark Spectre may come too soon
– or do I mean, too late?
That I should end before I finish or
finish, but not well.
That I should stain Your honor, shame Your name,
grieve Your loving heart.
Few, they tell me, finish well . . .
Lord, let me get home before dark.
The darkness of a spirit
grown mean and small,
fruit shriveled on the vine,
bitter to the taste of my companions,
burden to be borne by those brave few
who love me still.
No, Lord. Let the fruit grow lush and sweet,
A joy to all who taste;
Spirit-sign of God at work,
stronger, fuller, brighter at the end.
Lord, let me get home before dark.
The darkness of tattered gifts,
rust-locked, half-spent or ill-spent,
A life that once was used of God
now set aside.
Grief for glories gone or
Fretting for a task God never gave.
Mourning in the hollow chambers of memory,
Gazing on the faded banners of victories long gone.
Cannot I run well unto the end?
Lord, let me get home before dark.
The outer me decays –
I do not fret or ask reprieve.
The ebbing strength but weans me from mother earth
and grows me up for heaven.
I do not cling to shadows cast by immortality.
I do not patch the scaffold lent to build the real, eternal me.
I do not clutch about me my cocoon,
vainly struggling to hold hostage
a free spirit pressing to be born.
But will I reach the gate
in lingering pain, body distorted, grotesque?
Or will it be a mind
wandering untethered among light phantasies or grim terrors?
Of Your grace, Father, I humbly ask. . .
Let me get home before dark.