I grew up hearing Stephen Covey’s voice on repeat. My dad was a certified instructor, so nearly every car ride carried that familiar refrain: Begin with the end in mind. It’s good advice. Most of us don’t live that way. Retirement gets delayed. Health gets postponed. Meaning gets crowded out by urgency. We drift without design. Socrates called it the unexamined life.

Scripture shares Covey’s instinct, but with a decisive turn. The end does not originate in our imagination. It already exists in God’s. He is the author of the story. We move across the stage of His purposes.

That’s why something Dr. Carl Williams said recently stayed with me: instead of fixating on the end, focus on making your beginning. The biblical end is breathtaking. The earth filled with the knowledge of God’s glory. The nations streaming to Zion. God’s kingdom unshakable. And in many ways history has leaned in that direction. Over two thousand years, Jesus’ movement has crossed continents. Churches, hospitals, universities, human rights, care for the poor. Much has been set right along the way. The gospel has proven remarkably generative.

But there’s a danger hidden inside that grand vision when we start imagining ourselves as part of something large and visible. We confuse scale with faithfulness. Platform with obedience. We begin dreaming about doing something great for God while overlooking the small, demanding work right in front of us. Jesus never began with crowds. He began with a few. Before the cross drew all people, there were fishermen, tax collectors, and zealots walking dusty roads with a rabbi. He started with proximity. With names. With meals. With long conversations. With correction, failure, forgiveness, and shared life.

Jesus did not merely begin with the end in mind. He began with the beginning in mind. He understood that the renewal of the world would come through slow, patient, relational formation. God’s end is global. His method is personal. Which means the kingdom does not advance through our grand strategies. It advances through ordinary people saying yes, one life at a time.

God holds the end. We are entrusted with the beginning.

Maranatha,

Jordy