While eating dinner yesterday in celebration of a dear lady’s 89th birthday, the server came to clear off our table. The “birthday girl” was still working on her plate, and she said to the server, “I’ll be finished in a moment.” With that I said, “Take your time. You’ve waited 89 years for this!” That sounds like a long time.
Yesterday evening, my wife and I attended a memorial service for a man found dead in his apartment at the age of 38. The words spoken by his father during the service were, “My son lived 78 years in those 38 because he got all he could out of life!”
Interesting, that in the same day, my wife and I would celebrate a birth and then later on sit through a memorial service; life and death.
The truth is, no matter if you truly live to be 89 or try to squeeze 78 years into 38, time is fleeting and life is but a vapor. James 4:14 reminds us, For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.
A gentleman who spoke at the memorial service is a well-known artist in Kentucky and pastor. In his message, he said, “I used to make good money painting, but that is not my goal anymore. It is telling others about the brevity of life and the gospel.”
So the question comes, what will you do with your “vapor”? What are you doing right now with your “vapor”? James goes on to give us the answer to those questions, Instead you ought to say, If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that. But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil (4:15-16). The Lord wills that you be born again, The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9). God wills that you have a true view of Him and His Son, for only when you do are you really ready to live! God is in total control of your vapor. He started it, and He knows when it will end. Life is a vapor, but only God can give substance to what is so fleeting (John 10:10, 28-30).
From A Pastor's Heart 