“Man’s life is but the shadow of smoke, the dream of a shadow.”
Thomas Brooks
Does this question sound familiar to you? This may surprise you, but the Bible never asks that question exactly as it is written above, “what is life?” The Scriptures do answer it for us though. A large portion of the Bible is devoted to educating mankind on the brevity and impermanence of life and to its need for a redeemer. A very close form of this question is found in the book of James, chapter four:
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” [James 4:13-15 ESV, emphasis mine]
James 4:13-15 ESV, emphasis mine
The question that James asks is, “what is your life?” He is addressing the assembly of believers. He makes the question personal. Then he answers the question, “You are a mist…” Some translations say, “vapor.” Your life is brief. It is short and uncertain. I wrote the following poem that attempts to capture some of this brevity.
Mist
Do you know this?
the ethereal nature of
the first snow’s kiss,
down heaven’s ladder
to earth, its lowest rung,
to make all joys the sadder,
to melt on Adam’s tongue.
And yet, his sons confess,
as men are wont to do,
that sorrows sow a bliss,
an aching to be new,
a grieving for flakes missed.
If only this, we knew.
Have you felt the weight of the brevity of your life? Where do we go from here? When we feel the transitory nature of our own existence and especially, when we add to this, the guilt and condemnation of sin? In a conversation with Martha, and very near to the grave of his friend, Lazarus, Jesus answers these questions, “Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” [John 11:25-26] Have you trusted Christ personally? Are you walking with him daily and is all your confidence in his finished work? Have a blessed week and we will see many of you on Sunday. D. V.
Love in Christ,
Pastor Dale
