What is Your Life?
I remember the sad occasion just like it was yesterday; Valerie and I waited in line at a funeral home to pay our respects to one of Valerie’s co-workers who had lost her 15-year-old daughter in a tragic accident. The young lady was out of school for her holiday break and just days away from her sixteenth birthday when her life was cut short. You can’t imagine the sorrow, shock and disbelief on display as her classmates and young friends streamed in and out of the funeral home, suddenly impacted with the sobering reality of death!
You know, it got me thinking that each of us must face the fact that life is short, death is certain and eternity is long! While we try to fool ourselves into thinking that death is always a long way off for us, the grim reality is that death is as close as a yellow line on the highway or a doctor’s voice on the other end of the phone line for each of us. Perhaps this is what James was saying to us when he wrote,
“Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour that appeareth for a little time and then vanisheth away.” (James 4:14)
Listen, in spite of our best efforts, things will happen in this life that we’ve not prepared for, things will go wrong no mater how carefully we try to organize our lives! That’s why the bible teaches that as Christians we must walk by faith not by sight, and we should live our lives each day with faith in Christ. We need to remem- ber that it is our faith in God that allows us to press on in spite of life’s uncertainties. By faith we are assured that God will help us through the unexpected difficulties that come into all our lives. So, while none of us knows what the future holds, we can know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God holds our future in His hands!
Now, if you’re one of those who plan to get right with God “someday,” let me encourage you to let that day be today, before the unexpected happens and the opportunity of the future is lost. The truth is that our life is as fleeting as a vapor that is here for a moment and then ‘poof,’ gone away! But what a joy it is to know that when we are obedient to the gospel of Jesus Christ and remain faithful unto death, we will spend eternity with God!
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