Despite how it feels at times, life is not an endless cycle. The dreary routines, the day-ins and day-outs… they don’t last. No, the fact of the matter is that our days are numbered. One day, before we know it, everything we do, all we experience on this earth, will meet its last. So, here’s my question: How does acknowledging that our final day is imminent affect how we live in our present day?

I’m not trying to stir up an existential crisis within you. On the contrary, I want you to really think — think deeply about life and what you do with it. How much time — precious time — do we waste when we allow ourselves to forget that right now counts forever? Not because we will be here on this earth forever, but because eternity is knocking. It beckons us toward a fork in the road — it’s either Heaven or Hell.

There’s a way to live if your destination is the latter. It’s a fairly easy lifestyle at that. No rules. No moral absolutes. No divine allegiance. Just do whatever you want, whenever you want, however you want. Follow your heart. Do what makes you feel good and in control. Don’t carry out that pregnancy. Marry someone of the same sex. What does it matter if it’s your life?

The endless cycles of the 9-5 jobs, weekend bar crawls, nightly doom scrolling, and other such pursuits of cheap, easy, and earthly pleasures — they keep life interesting, right? Eat, drink, and be merry. After all, “you only live once.”

Only, that’s not true. Not really.

Live a carnal, unrepentant, complacent life, and two realities await you on the day you find out it’s too late. One, you’ll find you never truly lived at all. And two, you’ll find you’ll never have the chance to truly live again. You’ll taste death and torment — the absence of all things good, true, and beautiful — forever. Second chances don’t exist beyond the grave. Those “endless cycles” of life you powered through via distraction or self-indulgence will prove to have been the foundation of the fast track to the depths of Sheol. Because once the “endless cycles” finally come to an end, once the life you’ve lived is said and done, there’s no going back.

Do nothing with your life, do as much as you can — doing good, being interesting — none of it can save you. It won’t give you purpose. It won’t help you understand why you’re here or where you’re going. The meaning you crave, the joy you seek, won’t be found in vain pursuits of the flesh. Living “your” life for you is a lifetime spent in futility. It’s the true existentialist’s nightmare: Is this all there is? If so, what’s the point? It’s the atheist’s denial: This can’t be all there is. Otherwise, what’s the point? It’s the agnostic’s inquiry: Could there be more to life than just this?

And this is where rubber meets the road. When the questions come, where do we go for answers? How can we cope with the reality that life does come to an end? Well, the only source that can provide the answers to life’s greatest questions is Christ Himself — His Word, His truth.

“For in Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28a). We weren’t created from nothing, only to be here for a little while, then fade away into nothing again. No, no. We were carefully crafted by the hand and will of the God of the universe — the same God who knew all of our days before there were any (Psalm 139:16). The same God who, before the foundation of the earth, established the plan of redemption to bring His people home to Him. The same God who made us in His image, a people made “a little lower than the angels … crowned … with glory and honor” (Hebrews 2:7).

This God — He gives us purpose. He gives life meaning and beauty. He provides joy amid suffering, peace amid battle, hope amid desperation. With God, all things are possible (Matthew 19:26). With God, graves turn to gardens, and ashes transform into breathtaking artistry. Even the way the sunset spills into our living rooms in the evening, or the way the birds sing in the morning, carries significantly more gravitas when rightly connected to its Origin. Mistakes and hardships are a part of divine refinement. Fear and uncertainty are opportunities to lean into the arms of the One who holds it all.

For the Christian, there’s no such thing as an “endless cycle.” First, our faith is rooted in the very reality that this earth is not our home — heaven is. As such, we long for the day our earthly time comes to an end, because that’s when we get to be with our Lord and Savior face to face as we were meant to be. Second, the only endlessness we’ll experience is eternal paradise, and there, we won’t want it to end. Finally, and for eternity, we will be free from suffering, struggle, or sins of any kind. Every one of your tears? Personally wiped away by your heavenly Father. Every tireless act of obedience on this hostile planet? Rewarded with the tender words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

From the biblical worldview, everything has eternal significance. Nothing is trivial, nothing is lost. We must never imagine the race of faith as an endless oval track — lapping the same orange granules forever under stadium lights, chasing a finish line that never arrives. No, we are on a rugged pilgrim path: narrow, steep, winding through shadow and storm, yet relentlessly forward, with a real destination waiting beyond the veil of glory.

Solomon, gazing “under the sun,” saw the brutal irony of the arena: “I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all” (Ecclesiastes 9:11). Speed fails, strength falters, wisdom starves, brilliance goes bankrupt — so much lies utterly beyond our ability to control.

Yet the gospel turns the whole scene upside down. The prize is not awarded to the fastest or the fiercest, but to the faithful who simply refuse to quit. It is dogged, Spirit-sustained endurance that carries us home. Praise be to God, for He does not stand at the finish line with a stopwatch. Rather, He walks the road with us, breathing His own strength into our lungs when ours has faltered. And Jesus Himself has spoken the promise that silences every fear: “The one who endures to the end will be saved” (Matthew 24:13).

So, beloved, keep running. The world will keep spinning out its weary loops: another Monday, another paycheck, another scroll, another drink, another distraction, another decade that feels exactly like the one before. It will sell you the lie that this is all there is. But you know this: one day the stadium lights will snap off. The track will fall silent. The cycles you mistook for eternity will collapse into a single, irreversible moment when the gun sounds for the last time, and every runner stands exposed before the Judge who sees the heart. On that day, only one thing will matter: Were you on the narrow path that leads to life, or still circling the broad one that ends in destruction?

The good news is that you are not trapped in the loop today. This very moment, Christ is calling you out of the grandstand and onto the pilgrim road. The gate is still open. The Companion is still near. The finish line is real, and it is glorious. So, step onto the path that has an end — and a beginning that never ends. Endure with the strength He supplies. Run toward Home. Because for those who are in Christ, only one thing is truly endless: the joy that awaits when the race is over, and the Father says, “Welcome home, child.”

*Published by The Family Research Council at frc.org (1-800-225-4008; 801 G Street, NW, Washington, D.C. 20001) Authored by Sarah Holliday on January 11, 2026.