On The Brevity Of Life!

 Billy Graham Quote: “The greatest surprise in life to me is the brevity of life.” (7 wallpapers) - Quotefancy

THU EP Reflection 111920 (James 4:13 – 5:6)

On the brevity of our lives: There are times when I come across words that are truly sobering. Those words can surely make us feel as if we have been struck so we can be awake and listen. They don’t beg for our attention; they have our attention! That’s the kind of words I read in today’s Epistle of James 4. Let me read it for you: “Come now, you who say, today or tomorrow, we will go to such and such town and spend a year there, doing business and making money. Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are in a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say: If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that.” Our life in this world is like a tiny dot in eternity. We need the right perspective here!

If there are people who know well how NOT in control of life humans are, it is refugees. When you are a refugee, you know without a shadow of the doubt, that going right or left might result either in death or life. Your choices do not exactly depend on how well educated you are at that point. Regardless, we have seen a protection beyond this world. In armed conflicts, refugees are civilians fleeing hostilities but often enough, they become targets while in the war zones. From the testimonies I have heard, some refugees were protected beyond human explanation, whereas others perished in matters of seconds. There were stories where the assailants shot refugees indiscriminatory and a number of them miraculously survived the ordeal without a scratch. As you can understand, a large number of people died. Our country lost millions of lives. Everyone of them never thought, their last day was that soon. We all wished that we would survive. Evidently many of our friends didn’t survive. Like me, they also had plans, plans to graduate and find a job, build a house, settle and get married. Suddenly their lives were cut short. We should live as if we are on a life trajectory that will end at the appointed time.

We all make plans in life even when we have no way of knowing what tomorrow brings, but we still make plans. If the opportunity is still there tomorrow, our plans may succeed. The letter of James is teaching us about our attitudes when making plans: Avoid being arrogant and to boast, because it is evil. Just say: “If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that.”

I think this particular advice is trying to get us to sober up. We are called to be modest in our life preoccupations. We can drown in our own busy life, and kid ourselves that this life here is all that there is. It is important to have a serious daily reflection on our words and ways which should show us things that may not be in line with God’s word and repent and correct.

Our Gospel reading today also brings out the idea that we will long to see the day of the Son of Man and people will tell us He is here, or He is there. Don’t listen to them. The Kingdom of God is already amongst you! Jesus is amongst you! We need to be careful as we wait for the coming of the Son of God. We need to have a waiting attitude even in the midst of our busy lives. Examples are given to us of Noah. People lived crazy busy lives and didn’t care one bit about the warnings. Likewise, with the days of Lot, the family left Sodom and Gomorrah but the heart of the wife of Lot stayed behind. This is why she turned to look back (in rebellion to God’s instruction) and turned into a pillar of salt. All these imageries are great teaching moments for us believers, not to look back into the ways of the world but to live in the Kingdom of God in the here and now.

Let nothing take you away from Christ. Not your preoccupations, not your career, not your family. Protect your relationship with Jesus. Don’t let the affairs of the world discourage you or your faith. Enter and live in the Kingdom of God by faith, focus not on the world and its busy throng queuing for its pleasures and activities.

Focus on God!

Amen.

 

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