I don’t think it’s what Jesus had in mind, but I just finished reading Steven Pressfield’s Do the Work, and a major takeaway is that “the last shall be first.” Pressfield encourages the reader to determine where it is you want to end up with your project, weight loss, book…or whatever…and then plan how you are going to get there. Start at the end and then plot your journey. Set your goal. Get there. Do not pass go. Do not collect $100.

Resistance will get in the way, try to stop you, do everything It can to keep you from getting to the end goal. But it is your job to keep plowing through, don’t stop, don’t quit, don’t listen to the voices that will most certainly drag you down or keep you from crossing the finish line.

Seems to be to be a great way to start each day. Where do you want to be at the end of the day? What do you want to accomplish? Where do you want to be? Now go get there.

Start with the last and the first will be easy to determine. With the goal in mind the first steps are more obvious and easier to take. At the end of the day, the month, or the year you will find yourself right where you always knew you were headed.

The very One who said “the last will be first” is the One who already knew in eternity what the end goal was and had to be. In the manger  the end was already in sight. On the morning of Good Friday it was already known what the end would, could, and should be. With His eye on the only goal He came to accomplish, Jesus began with the end in mind and went ahead and accomplished it for the world. The First became last for you.

He was perfect and we, of course, are not. Our nature often keeps us from following through and making it all the way to the ends that are important for life and faith. But He promises to be with you always, even in seeming minutiae. He is there to help you plow through, keep going, and overcome the voices that would overtake. He wants what’s best for you. And what is often best for you is to follow through all the way to the end…to do what needs to be done for your own good, for the good of others, and for the good of the Kingdom.

I challenge you today to make the last first. Where do you want to be at the end of the day today? Get there. Where do you want to go this month? Get there. Where do you want find yourself at the end of this year? Write down the end, envision what the final scene will look like, and allow yourself to have a taste of the final feast. Now go take the first steps toward getting there.

How can putting the last first make a difference in your life?