November 19, 2023 - James 4

We can be so self-dependent. So confident. So cocksure. We can arrange our lives as if God does not exist and as if we are the masters of our destinies. Here, James writes about merchants who have all the details planned out: The time, the place, the duration of the visit, the amount of profit. All figured out!

Solomon cautions, “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring” (Proverbs 27:1). So ignorant are many about the frailty of their lives: “a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes” (James 4:4). We should know this, i.e., that life is brief and that we do not know what tomorrow (or even the next moment) will bring.

We can think of so many similes: “swifter than a weaver’s shuttle” – “as a cloud” – swifter than a runner” – “like the evening shadow” – “like smoke” – “like the grass.”

What, then, to do? Live faithfully and hopefully in the present and, with assurance, look to eternity.

RECOGNIZE: “My days are like an evening shadow; I wither away like grass” (Psalm 102:11).

PRAY: “Let me know how fleeting I am!” (Psalm 39:4) & “Teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12).

BUILD UPON THIS CONVICTION: “And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 2:17).

What is life? ‘tis but a vapor,

Soon it vanishes away;

Life is like a dying taper:

O, my soul, why wish to stay?

Why not spread thy wings and fly

Straight to yonder world of joy?

Why not spread thy wings and fly

Straight to yonder world of joy? --Thomas Kelly (1823)