The grass withers, the flower fades… Isaiah 40:7
Your life is beautiful, but that’s not all God has to say to us. Your life is beautiful and fragile. To live well, you need to know that your life is both beautiful and fragile.
James reminds us of the fragility of life, “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit’—yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes” (Jas. 4:13-14).
Our lives are fragile. We are like a vapor—here today and gone tomorrow. If we fail to see this, we will arrogantly assume that we know what tomorrow brings. But only God, who holds each of our lives in his hands, knows what tomorrow will bring.
Someone will be greatly missed this Christmas. Maybe it’s a parent, a grandparent, or a close friend. He (or she) has died, and you will really miss them. Perhaps there was a chair where grandma used to sit, and now it feels like an empty chair, a space that nobody else can fill.
To live well you need to know both the beauty and the fragility of human life. If we learn these things, we will be both thankful toward God and humble before God.
Are you more aware of the beauty or the fragility of life these days? Why?