The Last 20%

A question keeps rolling around in my soul.

What will I do with the last 20% of my life?

As the clock ticks down, it becomes more important. But behind it is something even deeper—an appointment with the end of earthly life..

The real question is “Will I be remembered?”

To help answer it, I came to a recent class I taught on Paul’s life.

As his life ebbs to a close, he encounters circumstances beyond his control. He survives a shipwreck, knowing God has a plan. He lives under in house but with a Roman centurion watching his every move. But the confinement does not bind his spirit.

And what did he do with that limited freedom? He wrote a letter. Not an instruction manual this time — his first letter to Timothy was that. This one was plaintive. Personal. A man near the end telling his protégé who he really was.

Buried near the close of that letter is a small request that seems trivial. Paul asks Timothy to bring his coat — it’s cold — and his scrolls, especially the parchments, the books of Paul’s time. An old man, days from execution, still wants his books. Still wants to study. Still wants to grow. That’s the whole sermon in one sentence: the day you stop growing is the day you die. You just haven’t had the funeral yet.

If you look at how Paul actually lived out his final years, three words keep forming in Paul’s soul.

Live boldly — he could get stoned, dragged out of a city, and walk back in to keep preaching.

Endure faithfully — beatings, jailings, shipwrecks, and he kept going anyway. It is the real test of character: not whether life treats you fairly, but whether you keep going when it doesn’t.

And finish well — because there’s really only one moment you’re allowed to quit, and it’s the moment you take your last breath. Everything before that is premature.

I think about the movie Coco sometimes — the boy who learns that as long as someone remembers you, you’re still alive, and when you’re forgotten, you fade. It’s a Pixar movie, but it’s not wrong. What matters most in a person’s life isn’t what he had. It’s what — and who — he leaves behind.

So here’s the question for the last 20%: not how much time is left, but what you’re doing with the time you have. Growing or coasting. Bold or timid. Enduring or quitting early. The last words that matter aren’t the ones you speak. They’re the ones your life has been saying all along.