Adversity Brings Perspective
My recent bout with COVID reminded me once again that there is so much beyond our control. Because we have so many freedoms, we sometimes think that there is nothing we can’t do, but then reality sets in, and we realize how much of life is out of our grasp.
The Book of James captures this sentiment eloquently with this passage from Chapter 4 (13-15): “Now listen, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.’ Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.’”
Wow! Talk about perspective. Despite our best-laid plans, we are, indeed, a mist. We have no idea what tomorrow might bring — a major storm, a sudden illness, even a dead battery — and suddenly our plans change dramatically.
The older we get, the more aware we become of our own mortality. There are times when I think about the ambitious plans I have and wish that I could live to 100, but there are other times when I am ready to go the moment the Lord calls.
Fortunately, we can trust in the Lord, thanks to this encouragement from the Gospel of Matthew (6:25-27): “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?“
Instead, let us give thanks for every day, make the most of every moment, and worry not about tomorrow.
Until we meet again, Be Blessed!