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From Here... To Eternity
by
Commissioner Joe Noland
I know, I know, not very original.
Wait! Hear me out. The title of the film is taken from Rudyard
Kipling’s 1892 poem, “Gentlemen-Rankers,” about soldiers of
the British Empire who had “lost their way” and were “damned
from here to eternity.”
The story is one of lust, deceit,
betrayal, and murder. Its protagonist is a lowly private who
loves the Army. He ends up being destroyed by the thing he
loves. The antagonist is his commanding officer, holding the
rank of Captain, and a true company man obsessed with power,
and the advancement of his career. He makes life miserable for
the private.
Throughout the story, rank, position,
and protocol become all-consuming. The institution and its
hierarchy take precedence over the mission. When the
institution and its trappings became more important than the
mission, then we are “damned from here to eternity.”
Do parts of this story sound familiar?
Every well-intended mission movement approaches a crisis
moment, or perhaps a series of crisis moments—the “here”
moment in “from here to eternity.”
These “here” moments represent the
potential dividing line between a movement and an institution.
It’s no longer “from 1865 to eternity.”
It’s “from HERE to eternity.” To change the future, we
must change the present. Change is the difference between life
and death (damnation). Be it within an organization, or an
individual.
At this crisis moment, ‘HERE,’
we hold the future in our hands. The life of this Army is in
our hands. The life of this movement is in our hands. Every
person we touch (in our hands) becomes a matter of life and
death.
Knowing this, let us move forward
unselfishly, unhesitatingly, fearlessly, and creatively. Let
us move forward, “from here to eternity,” with vision and holy
boldness. Amid a changing world, let us proclaim a changeless
Christ who is, paradoxically, the Creator of all change.
He does it
not by pushing us around but by working within us [changing
us], his Spirit deeply and gently within us.
-Ephesians 3:20-21 MSG
Change challenges (disrupts) the status
quo…
Stagnation is the window to never.
Change is the doorway to forever.
But one thing
I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is
ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which
God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
-Philippians 3:13-14
NOWHERE OR EVERYWHERE!
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