Today we bring the Graduation Gauntlet to an end. It’s been quite a ride over the last month as we’ve celebrated three graduations: Parker and Will earlier from college and today, Sydney, from high school.
These are the moments that remind me how quickly life comes and goes. James tried to explain it like mist in the morning.
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. (James 4:14 NLT, emphasis mine)
I think that sometimes we’re guilty of reading a verse like that and thinking that we’re supposed to value this life less, and yet that’s not the point. James drops that warning in the middle of some teaching about having confidence in our plans and not trusting the Lord’s plans. Instead of valuing the misty moments less, we should value them more because the Lord allowed them to happen in our lives.
These graduations reminded me how fragile the misty moments are. Nationwide (yes, the insurance company) preached about it for years in their “Life comes at you fast” ad campaign. Their point was that you’d better prepare for it. James’ point is that we’d better accept it as a beautiful, fleeting, vanishing, holy gift from God. Don’t put your trust in it, but put everything you’ve got into getting the most out of the mist that you can.
We can’t control the mist, and we can’t create the mist. But we can celebrate it and live our lives in such a way that we don’t miss the mist.
