Our pastor down in Georgia used to preach all the time on the brevity of life. Brevity means “short or brief.” At that time, I was in my twenties. I had almost my whole life in front of me. If I live into my 80’s, then I lived another 60 years. To me, that was a long time. But a lot of people die prematurely. Proverbs 27:1 says, “Boast not thyself of to morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.” No one is guaranteed another day, another hour, another breath. Everyone has an appointment with death, and no one misses that appointment. (Hebrews 9:27) So to die prematurely doesn’t mean that we die before our appointed time, but that by the world’s standards we died earlier than most.
But what if someone lives to the ripe old age of 100. That’s a lot of birthdays, and they got to their one hundredth birthday one birthday at a time. Everyone knows that. Then I started thinking of how time works and I broke that year down into a much smaller increment. Days! When I see a young child, I now think of how many days it’s taken them since their birth to develop to this point – 4 years old, 7 years old, 12 years old, etc. That baby grew into an adult one day at a time, one hour at a time, one minute at a time. Depending on what we are waiting for, a few minutes can seem like a long time. Ninety minutes in the life of an infant is a microscopic piece of their childhood, but if that baby is screaming from colic, to Mom that hour and a half feels like it will never end.
Yet, James 4:14 says, “Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.” To what is James comparing life? Eternity. When you received Jesus as your Savior, you learned that the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus. (Romans 6:23) You understand that you were born again and you will never die spiritually. From this moment on, you will live forever with the Lord. Now eternity started before you existed, and just like it has no ending, it also has no beginning. And although your life had a starting point, both physically and spiritually, it will having no ending point. Every soul will spend eternity someplace – either in Heaven or hell.
Psalm 90:12 says, “So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.” We might celebrate our birthday each year and recognize that we are now another year older, but we got there one day at a time. And we can only live one day at a time. So how does God expect us to spend our waking hours? Wisely.
Ephesians 5:15-16 says, “See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.”