Forgotten Perspectives

LIFE HAS ITS UNCERTAINTIES

James asked, “What is your life?” Secular scientists and philosophers have never been able to satisfactorily answer this question. As Christians, we know that life doesn’t end when our physical bodies die. We know that we will go on living after death. In fact, God Himself has instilled within the soul of man a longing for life beyond this one. Even primitive people held this hope. The proof of this is found in cave drawings by people who lived thousands of years ago. And ancient Egyptians were buried in their tombs with eating utensils, weapons, and even servants, as proof of their belief that they would live again—somewhere. A thousand years from today you indeed will be alive—someplace.

James answered his own question “What is your life?” by saying that life “is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.” A vapor is here one minute and gone the next. The steam arising from a teakettle on the stove appears for a moment and then vanishes.

The Bible uses many other metaphors to drive home the truth of the brevity of life. First Chronicles 29:15 reminds us that “our days on earth are as a shadow.” Job put it like this: “My life is a breath” (Job 7:7) and “Now my days are swifter than a runner; they flee away” (9:25). David added, “My days are consumed like smoke” (Psalm 102:3).

The very moment we take our first breath, we begin to die. We all have an appointment with death awaiting us. As a pastor I have stood at the graves of those who met their death in wrecks and wars, by disease and decay. One way or another, if Jesus tarries, we will all die. No one knows when, but everyone knows it will happen.

James’s point is that, for all of us, the length of life is uncertain. No matter how long we live, life is short. Addressing this uncertainty about the length of life, Solomon warned, “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth” (Proverbs 27:1). And his father David added this:

LORD, make me to know my end,

And what is the measure of my days,

That I may know how frail I am.

Indeed, You have made my days as handbreadths,

And my age is as nothing before You;

Certainly every man at his best state is but vapor.

Surely every man walks about like a shadow;

Surely they busy themselves in vain;

He heaps up riches,

And does not know who will gather them.

(Psalm 39:4–6)

Yes, life has its uncertainties. Especially for those who live with forgotten perspectives.

LIFE HAS ITS CERTAINTIES

Life’s greatest certainty is that it has an earthly end. It “vanishes away.” Our culture is busy trying to disguise the aging process. We color our hair, inject Botox around our eyes, and look for some miracle potion that will give us a few more years. Some people even go to the extreme and choose cryonics: they freeze their bodies after they die in hopes that some future medical breakthrough will provide a cure for their particular death-causing disease and enable them to live again.

But nothing will keep a single one of us from this ultimate appointment that is already on God’s calendar. As the Bible says, “In Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them” (Psalm 139:16).

When the late Peter Marshall was chaplain of the United States Senate, he often told a fable that illustrates the certainty of death. One day a wealthy merchant in Baghdad sent his servant to the market. Before long, the servant returned trembling and ashen-faced. He reported to his master, “I was down among the crowds in the marketplace and was jostled by someone in the crowd. When I turned around, I saw that Death had jostled me. She looked straight at me and made a threatening gesture. Please, Master, lend me your horse this night, that I might hurry to Samarra and hide there so Death cannot find me.”

The merchant loaned his servant the swiftest horse, and he galloped away in haste. Later the merchant went to the marketplace and saw Death still standing there in the crowd. He went over to her and asked, “Why did you frighten my servant today and make a threatening gesture toward him?”

“Oh,” replied Death. “That was not a threatening gesture at all. I was simply startled to see him here in Baghdad, for I have an appointment with him tonight in Samarra!”^a

Yes, life has its certainties.

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