The Brevity of Life

My old friend Randy is in the Oncology ward of Hamilton Medical Center, battling pneumonia and stage four cancer. I am older than Randy by only three and half months. Life seems so short. The Bible describes it as a vapor in James 4:14. Like a puff of steam that lingers but a moment before vanishing away, all too soon it passes. Other analogies from the Bible include Job who describes it as "swifter than a weaver's shuttle" in Job 7:6, and in Job 14:1-2 he writes:

Man born of a woman is of a few days and full of trouble.
He springs up like a flower and withers away;
like a fleeting shadow, he does not endure.

II Samuel 14:14 uses the analogy of how quickly water on the ground disappears, and the Psalmist describes writes in Psalm 103:15-16:

As for man, his days are like grass,
he flourishes like a flower of the field;
the wind blows over it and it is gone,
and its place remembers it no more.

Rev. Billy Graham, while speaking to students at Liberty University at the age of 78, said:

The greatest surprise in my life is the brevity of life.



The Rev. Billy Graham, who is now 91, continues to remind us that given the brevity of life, and nearness of eternity, we ought to live for Christ.

As I reflect on these things today, I remember a few lines from an old song that I share with you in closing:

Only one life so soon it will pass.
Only what's done for Christ will last.
So live for Jesus all your days.
It's the only life that pays.
When you recall, you have but one life.