Even if the world does not end today, time will end for some of us today.

In an essay entitled “The World’s Last Night” (Fern-seed and Elephants), C.S. Lewis wrote about our tasks that stop, finished or not, when time ends—for us or the world.

“For what comes is judgment; happy are those whom it finds labouring in their vocations, whether they were merely going out to feed the pigs or laying good plans to deliver humanity a hundred years from now from some great evil. The curtain is indeed now fallen. Those pigs will never in fact be fed, the great campaign against white slavery or governmental tyranny will never in fact proceed to victory. No matter; you were in fact at your post when the inspection came.”

Few of us complete great deeds or find the success we intended when we began. It is enough, I think, that we are engaged in what we are called to do and follow it to the end.