I’m losing on all my Words With Friends games, and besides, it’s been a while since I’ve blogged, so I thought I’d hammer out a few thoughts on the keyboard. How many commas does that last sentence have, and are they all appropriate? Who knows.
I’m feeling a little out-of-sorts the past week. Short version: last week I was diagnosed with hypertension. “Diagnosed” makes it sound so…serious. And it is. Hypertension is the “silent killer” and ranks pretty high up there on the list of things that will send you to meet your Maker. Many, many people have it and don’t even know it because symptoms are rare or misdiagnosed. But I did say “short version.” The meds the doctor put me on are working wonders in bringing my blood pressure down, but they are also doing a number on my body in other ways. So much so, in fact, that I no longer remember where I was going with this. 🙂
All this business with hypertension and the “silent killer” has gotten me to thinking of the brevity of life. Life really is a vapor, as James describes it in the Bible. He’s talking about people making plans, saying they will do this tomorrow or they will go here tomorrow. Yet, we don’t know if we have a tomorrow because life is “but a vapor, here today and gone tomorrow.” The New Living Translation puts it this way: ” 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.” So what gives us the right to say what we will or will not do tomorrow or a year from now? I’m not saying that making plans is foolish. Without a vision or a dream or a plan, we resemble a 4 year-old on a bicycle with training wheels, stuck in a pothole, peddling as fast as we can, going no where because we’re on unlevel ground. What I am saying is what James said in verse 1 5 of the same chapter. “What you ought to say is, “If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.” Seeking God’s will first is what levels the terrain we’re learning to ride your bicycle on. Who knows what He has in store for our lives tomorrow. Maybe He wants us to be a missionary. Maybe He wants us to help the elderly neighbor next door. Maybe He wants us to speak to the youth group. Or sing a song in church. Or write a book or play. Or befriend a new kid in class. Or….you get the point. Our life is a vapor, but with God, the opportunities are beyond our imagination. Why would we want to limit them with our own minds, when His is so infinitely greater?
Tornadoes & Rainbows 