This too shall pass

"...What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes." (Jas 4:14)

What is your life?

Is your life a sterling success? Remember your life is a mere breath. There may be a heart-racing pause between air inhaled and air exhaled. An exciting if brief span of time when the atmosphere of the party revolves around you. Indeed, when your life is in the stratosphere. However, breath will expire, and your spirit with it. All you are, all you have, shall fade and diminish as life draws to a close. You cannot bring your social status or worldly goods into death with you. Who remembers Ozymandias? Rather remember your Maker. The one who gives and the one who takes away. The one who enrichens and the one who impoverishes. The one who elevates and the one who humbles. Your life is too short to be wasted on success. However dazzling its accoutrements, they shall fizzle away, recede to nothingness, when you turn to dust and ashes and stand naked in the light of eternity.

Is your life a disappointment and a failure? Do you despair over the foolish and even sinful decisions you've made? Is your life one unmitigated disaster after another? Do even the lowly look on you in disgust? Have close friends and beloved family lost faith in you, are unsure what to think about you, or have altogether left you? Do you have nothing? Are you no one? Remember God, for he remembers you, even if no one else does, even if your own mother has forgotten you. Turn to him, your refuge, your true life. The good news is life is a vapor, it too shall soon end; and this life isn't all there is. So much more and so much better awaits you in the world to come if only you cling to Christ. Where else will you go? Where else can you go? There is no solace in the wilderness. There is no life in the desert. There is only one who has the words of eternal life.

Is your life a middling mediocrity? Remember your life is a mist. It has some form, it has some substance, it has some function, but it is entirely fleeting. Like smoke from a cigar. It might taste pleasant enough, smoke rings look cool, but smoke dissipates. One day may bring wealth and prosperity, but the next bring doom and gloom. Or vice versa. Nothing is guaranteed in life. Not even life itself. The young may be suddenly plucked from this life like a flower in full bloom. The old may wither in sadness or harden in bitterness. Those in the middle grow old, grow old, and wear the bottoms of their trousers rolled. They were never meant to play Hamlet. Perhaps at best start a scene or two. Men won't remember their lives nor deeds, but labor in God's vineyard is never wasted. After all, God's eyes saw our unformed substance. God wrote in his book every single day formed for his children before any of them had ever come to be. Like a man in love preparing a beautiful picnic for his beloved, God has planned and prepared each day for us before we ever arrived on the scene. And each of these days, lived for him, will echo in eternity, even if they appear insignificant to the blind eyes of this world. Why trust what the blind say about that which they cannot see? Yet in God's light do we see light.

Take a deep breath in, breathe out, and the breath is gone. Life is hebel.