This passage, is why I wanted to study this book with a group. There is so much packed in here, that is so relevant to 2020.
...yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a midst that appears for a little time and then vanishes.
James has already touched on this as e read of being a blade of grass or a flower that perishes in the wind. This is incredibly humbling. We are here today and gone tomorrow yet like as reckless immortals during our time on earth. I wonder at times, how much American fountain of life pursuing, false thoughts and self-love has crept into our biblical theology? 2020 is the perfect time and place to access it. This year- NO ONE could have planned, yet the Lord deemed it so. How have we responded? Temper tantrums, devastation to cancelled plans? Irritations that our expected norms are now no longer? Pleas, cries and demands of our self needs and expectations being met- and met now or else? Or else what I ask? Have we not read, are we not told, was it not written thousands of years ago...we do not know what tomorrow will bring.
Tomorrow, may not come for some of us reading this. A very sobering reality but one we should think on none the less. If we read this believing the Word for the truth that it presents; we might realign our entire life, our entire way of thinking. If we are not living for eternal matters- that being Christ, then I beg to ask- are we living at all? Or have we found ourselves grasping at wind and wasting our midst here on earth?
What do we spend the most time on? Planning for tomorrow? Or that vacation, or that expectation 1 year, 2 years or 3 years from now? I write this because I have been there, and I have been stuck there, not in 2020 but in years past; where I thought we had a neatly lined up 3 year plan, that we would live here, and then move there and then attend such and such- and when it didn't happen- I was devastated. Like, deep, sorrow-filled devastation that all of MY plans would not be. Read that again...MY plans.With my mouth I would have declared God's sovereignty but with my life I expected it to match up with my wants and desires. Especially when we think what we want is good or honorable. Yet- until we live this way "Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that," we will never have peace and hope in Christ- it will always be in our circumstance and situation. We will miss the JOY of the trials because we are pouting/angry/anxiety filled about unmet expectations.
Chapter 4 concludes with this, "As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin."
2020. The year of shock. The year no one was expecting and the year we were all faced with the truth that we arrogantly boast in what is yet to come. We have had several trips cancelled. Family we could not see, even "good things," not come. How could this be, right? We must learn to trust an unknown future to our known God. To learn to delight in His ways and trust with confidence that His ways are higher than our ways, and His ways are for our eternal joy and His eternal glory; not necessarily our earthly happiness. How can we change our way of thinking that we get out of this boasting in arrogance? I am reminded of our Philippians study, in which we read Philippians 4:8 Finally brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is anything worthy of praise think about these things. Let us learn to fill our hearts and minds and hands with these good things from the Lord, to take today in its fullness and live it out with devotion and obedience and love for the One who holds tomorrow. <3
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