Pay attention, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such-and-such a town. We will stay there a year, buying and selling, and making a profit.” You don’t really know about tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for only a short while before it vanishes. (James 4:13-14)
I have to confess I really don’t know what to do with passages like this from this, so brass and in your face. However at the same time I respect the cander of the author of this passage, the apostle James. Throughout the New Testament, especially through the letters from the apostles there is this sense of urgency. This urgency is ever present as if they believe that the world would come to an end at the end of each day and so they devoted their lives to the cause of Christ.
James says that our lives are like mist in the wind, like our very existence is as fragile as a dandelion in the rushing wind.
Have you ever felt like that?
Frederick Buechner wrote, “Intellectually we all know that we will die, but we do not really know it in the sense that the knowledge becomes a part of us. We do not really know it in the sense of living as though it were true. On the contrary, we tend to live as though our lives would go on forever.
I don’t know about you but I think sometimes I live as though I am indestructible, but its foolish nonsense. We are made to glorify God and God alone and it is only because of God that we live.
Can imagine if we lived our lives like the apostles did?
Like everyday was our last chance to show the world the love of Christ?
How different would our lives look?
How much more would love conquer hate?
Remember the very words of Jesus.
“They will know you are my disciples by your love.”
The other side of this is to not worry about tomorrow either. So if we cant be arrogant to think that we will experience tomorrow and can’t worry about tomorrow, then what are we to do?
I think the psalmist says it best.
“Be still and know that I am God.”