“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?” (Job 38:4a, NIV).

I was flying from San Jose, California to Salt Lake City, Utah, on my way home from our Albanian Health Fund meeting. As I was thinking and praying about God’s plans for my future with the ministry, I gazed out the window at ripple after ripple of ragged mountain ridges separated by desert plains and salt flats. I wondered at their geologic development, earth plate crunching against earth plate over thousands of years, pushing up sharp wrinkles from an ancient ocean floor, predating even the creation of mankind. I thought of God’s greatness as Creator and my smallness within it all, yet here I was focusing on my personal future as if it mattered.

“What is man that you are mindful of him?”

Against the backdrop of all that exists and all that has been, it is hard to imagine the significance of my existence or the importance of my planning for the future. I realized again during the flight that everything I am and will be is truly insignificant unless life is eternal in both depth and duration. A deeply meaningful life that ends forever is too tragic to ponder. An endless, shallow life would hardly be worth the effort of God.

I once had a physician friend tell me, “You know, even if there were no life after death, the Christian life is still the best way to live.”

I don’t think he was doubting the promise of eternal life with Christ or talking about the most ethical way to live. I think he was confirming that there is an eternal depth to our lives in Christ. That depth, which we now enjoy, includes God’s presence, the fellowship of believers and the significant mission God has crafted for each of us. That depth is eternal in its value.

Whenever I, 1/8,000,000,000th of the world’s population, chart a path with Christ who lives within me, two things happen with lasting significance:

1. I am moving in a direction that will influence the eternal relationship of others with God.
2. I am moving in a direction that leads me closer or farther away from the eternal value of God’s presence in my life.

So, the present decisions I make do matter, even within my minute significance among billions of transient humans on this earth, because the God who created and saved me has imbedded His eternal presence and purpose within me.

“…It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me…” (Galatians 2:20, ESV).

When I boarded my next flight in Salt Lake City, I sat next to a young couple whom I did not get to know, but I did watch the wife open her phone and select “Today’s Christian Music.” I knew I was seated next to another human being, even smaller than I, in whom God had placed eternal value and through whom God will do eternal things through endless time.

Dear God,

I am amazed that you care for me and use me for your eternal purpose, and yet you do.

Amen