The Brevity of Life

Seriously...where does time go? Can it really be that I haven't posted anything since MAY 26th! OK, so part of that is because it is summer and school is out and I'm just a wee bit busier than usual. I am also studying three different things and just when I think I'm ready to share something, I get sidetracked and then I find something new and it starts to weave into where I left off and then I'm off in another direction and the picture gets bigger and I don't know where to begin.

And then...a note from a friend. A friend from college died. How can that be? She was the same age as me. I'm not even 40. She thought she had the flu and then 2 days later she was gone. I can still see her curly hair, engaging smile and hear her hearty laugh in my head. Oh, the brevity and unpredictability of life.

In James Chapter 4:13-15 it says: Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit." Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that."

This is one of the passages I've been studying and what I would have shared two days ago would have been different than what I am sharing today. For two days ago, I was thinking more along the lines of getting sick or my car breaking down preventing me from going to a friend's house our running in a race. In fact, recently I came down with a fever the night before a half marathon and ran it anyway...which in turn made my illness last almost 3 weeks. But I had prayed about it the night before and I know God had me in that race for a couple of reasons I could share...but that was the old lesson from these verses.

The lesson for me today is this...life is unpredictable and entirely in God's hands. Not just the little things, because I've actually become pretty comfortable with knowing He works ALL things for my good according to His will and purpose for my life (Romans 8:28). I've come to enjoy the "Godoinces" and Divine interruptions that occur daily in my life. But perhaps I need to be reminded DAILY of the brevity of life. Perhaps then I wouldn't be as quick to brush off those little moments with my husband and my kids that seem so little but mean so much. I would not put off the call to that friend. I should not hesitate to share that word of encouragement or give that hug. Do you see the key here? To remove the would and the should and insert the "am" or present active participle of the verb and live in the present and not the future...because I do not know what tomorrow holds for me here. And although I know that when this life is over that I will be in the presence of my King for eternity, I don't want to miss out on one thing the Lord might have for me to do here today.

Is there something that you've been putting off to do later that you would regret not doing if you knew that tomorrow you might not be here to do it?

Lord willing, I will have time to share more of what the Lord has been showing me in His Word on this blog this summer...in between playing with my kids and enjoying the sun that is.