Christians have a foundational truth in their arsenal that puts everything in our lives into perspective. It doesn’t make sense to unbelievers, but it is what gives us joy, peace and hope: Jesus is coming back.

We all have our own unique life story. Our story is our past and the myriad of influences and life events that shape us. Our narrative is how we express our outcome, as well as define ourselves to others based on our perspective about our story. In other words, what we tell others about ourselves, based on our story, will define who we are.

Mr. Eggers was 68 years old. He had been employed as a customer service representative with Wells Fargo Home Mortgage in Des Moines, Iowa for years. He did his job well. He was also a law-abiding man. So, one can only imagine his shock. Eggers was summarily fired. His offense? Back in 1963, when he was nineteen, Eggers had inserted a fake dime into a laundry machine.

At 78 with 50 years of ministry and almost 60 years of marriage, I could reminisce about the past seasons of my life and talk about retirement, but scripture exhorts us to “forget the past and reach forward to those things which are ahead; pressing toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus”. (Philippians 3:13-14)

I am anticipating with great joy the adventure that awaits me in this next season of my life, because I am daring to go farther with God rather than just take retirement.

The world is a messed-up place. There is pain, separation, brokenness, and death. Our fallen nature causes people to divide each other into groups defined by physical characteristics, and to treat each other horribly based on those groups. People lie, cheat, steal, and murder.

God calls this wickedness sin, and in the previous articles we have seen that, according to the Bible, the sin of racism is the unequal treatment of people because of their skin color, or the devaluing of someone or some group because of physical characteristics.