Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. James 4:14
As a boy, I used to listen to the evening news on radio station CFCY in Charlottetown. At the end of the news, an announcer with a distinctive British voice would come on and read the day’s obituaries. The announcer’s name was Stuart Dixon. Each obituary started the same way: ‘The death occurred, in his/her 83rd (or whatever the age) year…’ And the pattern throughout was consistent. In the cases of those families who did not want flowers at the funeral home or the funeral, Mr. Dixon would say in his British dialect, ‘Please aumit flaahs’. In the years since, I have often wondered if somebody else at that station had the sad duty of reading Mr. Dixon’s obituary on the air. Obituaries, like the dash on a tombstone date, encapsulate a life in a tiny amount of space. Those who read obituaries today have their obituaries read tomorrow. If life is so fleeting, what is its point?
To those who live only for this world, life must be a dreadful disappointment. A life spent in experiencing pleasures, gathering possessions, and influencing others often winds down in a nursing home wheelchair. Even the memories of the good times fade. At the funeral, some nice things are said, but in a remarkably few years, nobody remembers or cares. Dust to dust, and gone! Is that sum of the life of a believer? Thankfully, no.
Our lives are certainly cumbered with much that is meaningless and useless. But the life of a believer does not terminate in emptiness. During our lifetime, we live in the good of the knowledge that we will spent eternity with our Lord. We also live with the knowledge that those deeds done for Him are never lost, but are placed in our heavenly account. In other words, our life does not vanish away like vapour.
Only one life, ’twill soon be past. Only what’s done for Christ will last. Life is not so hopeless or pointless when viewed through the eyes of a child of God. -Jim MacIntosh