28

For me as a boy, one of the most gripping illustrations my fiery father used was the story of a man converted in old age. The church had prayed for this man for decades. He was hard and resistant. But this time, for some reason, he showed up when my father was preaching. At the end of the service, during a hymn, to everyone's amazement he came and took my father's hand. They sat down together on the front pew of the church as the people were dismissed. God opened his heart to the Gospel of Christ, and he was saved from his sins and given eternal life.

But that did not stop him from sobbing and saying, as the tears ran down his wrinkled face - and what an impact it made on me to hear my father say this through his own tears - "I've wasted it! I've wasted it!"

This was the story that gripped me more than all the stories of young people who died in car wrecks before they were converted - the story of an old man weeping that he had wasted his life. In those early years God awakened in me a fear and a passion not to waste my life. The thought of coming to my old age and saying through tears, "I've wasted it! I've wasted it!" was a fearful and horrible thought to me.

- John Piper, Don't Waste Your Life

I was 21 not so long ago, and now I'm 28. I thank God for giving me the past 7 years - 3 years in York, and 4 years (and counting) with the Singapore Prison Service.

What will the next 7 years bring?