“All good things come to an end.” Someone quoted that old cliché to me recently. And, when reflecting on it, I found myself asking, “Why?”

The good dessert I had last night ended, to be sure, but the effect on my body continues. Okay, that example probably needs a little work. Let’s think about this a different way.

The goodnight kiss you got at the end of your first prom ends. But, the memory remains forever – and with it, perhaps, a sense of romance and hope and the mystery of the child-becoming-more-than-child.

The English or History or Philosophy class at college ends, but the knowledge acquired there lives with you and enriches your life forever.

My years of growing up in First Methodist Church in Asheboro ended long ago, but the impact of Sunday School teachers and Youth Ministers and Pastors like Cecil Hefner and Charlie White and Don Haynes continues to shape my journey of faith.

Educational training ends, but how it equips us for business and life goes on as long as we do.

My Mother and Father are both deceased. My earthly time with them ended. Bu there is not a day that I don’t recall their voices, their smiles, their life lessons, their counsel, their grace, their humor, and their love. All that they were lives on in the DNA of my soul.

Jesus no longer walks upon the earth. That ended sometime around 30 A.D. But His teachings and his Spirit are with us day by day, moment by moment. As He said before Ascending: “I will be with you always.” (Matthew 28:20)

“All good things come to an end?” I don’t think so. In fact, the essence of anything good is too large and strong to be destroyed by time. Goodness does not exist in any linear fashion. It simply “is,” and lives on and on in what Boethius called “the eternal now.” Do something good, and its effects create those ripples we often talk about – and they extend to life after life and, through those lives, to generation after generation. All the good persons who have touched us and influenced us live on in us, and through us they will live on in others ad infinitum.

So, here’s a good New Year’s resolution: Let’s live the sort of goodness – the sort of faithful, kind, and caring lives – that will touch others in such fashion that the goodness will never end.