JOB 14:1–2 – Man who is born of a woman is few of days and full of trouble. He comes out like a flower and withers; he flees like a shadow and continues not.”
THEME OF THE DAY: THE BREVITY OF LIFE – THE PRIORITIES IN LIFE. A recent report on aging in the United States revealed life expectancy has dropped to an average of 76.6 years. We know God is the Author and Finisher of both faith and life so we take human reports with a grain of salt. However the scriptures do teach the average lifespan of a person is seventy years – The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away (Psalm 90:10). Maybe if all the early deaths and lives lived longer than seventy or eighty were averaged through the course of human history it would come out at seventy. Regardless, today’s scripture is true. We are only in this world for a short period of time, a very short time compared with eternity. Job says of life, “few of days, like a flower and withers, flees like a shadow.” And that bring us to the theme of today’s nugget.
Life is short. Brevity is the one good word to sum it up. Oh, when we are young, we don’t think so or live so. There is a sense of “indestructibility” and “immortality” when we are young. Death and life’s fleeting nature are not topics brought up among friends, at school, or in the daily things of growing up as a young person. But start to attend more funerals of peers or those slightly older than ourselves. Bury parents. Feel the pain of aging bodies and minds and we realize most of our lives are viewed through the “rear view mirror” of life with what is seen through the “’windshield” of life not much territory left to travel. And that leads us to part two of today’s nugget theme – the priorities in life.
If we are gripped with the brevity of life, the natural question from such awareness becomes . . . “What are we living for—the insignificant, fleeting and worldly or the most important, eternal and spiritual?” The Apostle Paul would give the clearest and most direct answer to this question of all questions in life – For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain (Philippians 1:21). Now obviously another question must follow these words from the greatest Christian ever to live – “Are we?”
Friends, life is not like a test with a lenient professor who may give a “retake” if we didn’t do well the first time. Nor is life like taking a driver’s examination or any other exam that if we fail, we reschedule for another time. No, we get one chance. Just one. It is the height of both ignorance and foolishness to squander it on the trivial things of this sinful world. Let’s not be guilty of either as we seek to live out this one short life God has given us.
PRAYER: “Father, please don’t let me squander my brief life on earth on the trivial and fleeting.”
QUOTE: “How foolish to be attached to this world, live for this world, and rarely think of the eternal world. How foolish indeed!”
Because of Him,
Pastor Jim