Fragile

Something we often take for granted is how fragile life is. We don’t dwell on the fact that some day our life will end. Some day we will die, or Jesus will return and earthly life will end. Life is a precious gift, and it is like a sand egg timer slowly draining away, expect we don’t know how much sand is left in our timer.
We make all sorts of big plans for the future, but we have no idea if that future will ever happen.
“Look here, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year. We will do business there and make a profit.” How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone. What you ought to say is, “If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.” Otherwise you are boasting about your own plans, and all such boasting is evil.” James 4:13-16
Over the weekend a friend was involved in a serious road traffic accident, and for a time it looked as if the doctors may have needed to amputate his foot. Fortunately thanks to fast medical care and lots of prayer things are looking a bit more positive now, but it really hammered home to me how fragile we are. One minute you can be driving along without a care in the world, the next you are in an ambulance being rushed to the nearest operating theatre, or worse.
So often we tend to put things off til later in life. We’ll get serious with our faith once we are older. We’ll start following God’s way once we have lived a bit and had some fun. We’ll go and do mission once we have grown more mature spiritually ourselves. We’ll give money to God’s church once we have everything we need – the car, the house, the HDTV, the new iPad – once we have those then God can have the left-over.
But later may not come. We may not have that long. What we do have is now. Now is the time to get serious in our faith. Today is the day to start following God’s ways that lead to life rather than the devil’s path to destruction. Now is a good time to do mission, and grow spiritually as you do so. God wants our first-fruits, not what is left when we have satisfied our desire for stuff that will be out of date within a year.
This is a call to embrace life now. To not delay. To trust God fully today. To be the person He created you to be. To not focus on your own plans, but to seek His will. To not take the future for granted, but live in such a way as to make your life count for the Kingdom of Christ here and now, not waiting til a later day that may not come. Are you in?