Not only is it the case that the uncertainty of material prosperity should humble one as he faces a new year, but the uncertainty of physical health and life should do the same. James asked a question that should cause each one to be deeply impressed with the uncertainty of physical life on Earth. He said, … “whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life?” (James 4:14, emp. added). Think about this question, and think about it deeply. And know it is the case that not only the question but the answer given to it by James should cause each one to be impacted with the great issues of life and death. In the same context James wrote that a person’s life on Earth “. . . is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away” (James 4:14). Rogers says the word vapor here is from a word that “. . .was used of steam from a kettle or of smoke the wind carried away; it graphically depicts the transience of life” (563).
Life on Earth is certain (as to the fact that our life here will one day end), but it is uncertain (as to the very moment when that end will come). None knows when the end of his life on Earth will occur. Our days on Earth pass, and we will “finish” our years (cf. Ps. 90:9-10). Which one of us could lose his (her) physical health this year? Any one of us could. Which one of us could have the end of his (her) life on Earth occur this year? Any one of us could. The certainty that our life on Earth is going to end, and the uncertainty that we know not when this end will come should cause both young and old alike to be renewed daily in a greater awareness of what our lives here are all about (cf. 2 Cor. 4:16-18).
There is a sense in which each of us is a terminal case. As James reminds us, not only is it the case that we do not know if we have another year, we do not even know if we have another day! One of the world’s leading scientists (a former atheist), put it like this in a book published last year: “In our modern world, too many of us are rushing from experience to experience, trying to deny our own mortality, and putting off any serious consideration of God until some future moment when we imagine the circumstances will be right. Life is short. The death rate will be one per person for the foreseeable future. . . . Don’t put off a consideration of these questions of eternal significance until some personal crisis or advancing age forces a recognition of spiritual impoverishment” (Collins, The Language of God 232-33). Good advice. Will we heed it?
0 Comments