I recently returned
from speaking at a teen camp at Little Mahoning Bible Conference near
Punxsutawney, PA. Last Tuesday had been a typical summer camp day marked by
thick humidity, hot temperatures, and a low cloud cover that seemed to compress
the sticky mess into an oppressive shroud. The slightest effort seemed to
generate beads of perspiration that could only be assuaged by a cannonball into
a cold camp pool. Unfortunately, several times that day the pool was quickly
closed as thunderstorms rolled through the area and forced children to seek shelter
in surrounding buildings. Even comfort derived from a brisk pool was short
lived for safety’s sake.
In the evening I was speaking on a Bible passage in James 4:13-15 where James writes “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.’ Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.’” I stressed that since time is not certain it is wiser to allow God to set our agenda. The study generated some good discussion about life’s uncertainty and brevity. I got the impression that the truth I shared appeared rather abstract to a group of teens focused upon fun and most likely inoculated with a sense of immortality.
Meanwhile on that same day at another camp about 200 miles to the southeast in Carroll County, MD, the truth became a somber reality. At the same time I was speaking about the brevity and uncertainty of life, a fast-moving storm with heavy winds toppled about 20 trees at River Valley Ranch. This resulted in the injury of eight campers, two seriously, and the death of one 12-year-old boy tragically struck by debris from one of the trees. The children had been meeting in an open-air pavilion for Bible study and a song time when the sky suddenly turned dark. As the children were being rushed along a wooded path to a safe shelter about 150 yards away, the storm descended rapidly, violently, and tragically. In a matter of seconds, life’s plans were altered, innocence of childhood was shattered, and the reality of what life was really like confronted 114 teens at that camp. They saw the brevity and frailty of life, not theoretically, but as a horrific reality.
Life is often like this. We have the tendency to put life on autopilot until suddenly and unexpectedly, something barges into our life to shake our status quo. In these unsettling times we are forced to look at life through different lenses, process realities from alternative perspectives, and admit securities we had previously assumed were naïve at best and delusional as worst. At these pivotal points in time, we can either learn a timely lesson or continue to embrace figments of our imagination which assumes life continues on as it always has.
Those who continue to embrace life as unchanging, embrace the philosophy of uniformitarianism. This view of life promotes a teaching that the universe is governed by rigid unalterable and unexceptional constraints. In fact Peter addresses this mindset in 2 Peter 3:4 writing that some people say, “All things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.” He challenges this thinking by saying, “They willfully forget” (verse 5). Then he points to historical events that radically shredded the status quo in the past and were presently being purposefully ignored. Why do people refuse to acknowledge the obvious? Usually it is because the obvious is too unsettling to things as we would like them to be. When events take place like those at the camp in Maryland, the luxury of denial is vanishes. The life of a twelve year old boy and his family has been altered. The inconvenient truth, “We do not know what a day brings forth,” has been validated.
However, there are other realities that can enter our uncertain world. The truth that, “God heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds” (Psalm 147:3) also alters life – even in lives whose status quo has been shattered. The pain of living in a fallen world does not have to be seen as unalterable. God can and does make a difference even in the bleakest and most inexplicable times. He can enter what we see as pervasive gloom with His love and peace planting hope in the ashes of a person’s despair. We need to see the other side of life’s uncertainties – hope. Paul says to people who had experienced the death of their loved ones, “We do not sorrow as other that have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13). Even to that which seems most unalterable, death, God’s Word interjects the solace of hope anchored in the resurrection firmly attached to Christ’s.
While it is true that “we do not know what a day brings forth,” we do not have to live in a state of paranoiac paralysis. We face this reality with the other truths the Bible provides that plants hope in the soil of uncertainty. This propels us to live confidently to God’s glory. It is reported that Evangelist John Wesley was asked what he would do if he knew he would die tomorrow. He replied, “Why just as I intend to spend it now. I would preach this evening at Gloucester, and again at five tomorrow morning; after that I would ride to Tewkesbury, preach in the afternoon, and meet the societies in the evening. I would then go to Rev. Martin’s house, who expects to entertain me, talk and pray with the family as usual, retire to my room at 10 o’clock, commend myself to my heavenly Father, lie down to rest, and wake up in Glory.” Even uncertainty can be faced confidently and productively when it is connected to hope.
In the evening I was speaking on a Bible passage in James 4:13-15 where James writes “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.’ Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.’” I stressed that since time is not certain it is wiser to allow God to set our agenda. The study generated some good discussion about life’s uncertainty and brevity. I got the impression that the truth I shared appeared rather abstract to a group of teens focused upon fun and most likely inoculated with a sense of immortality.
Meanwhile on that same day at another camp about 200 miles to the southeast in Carroll County, MD, the truth became a somber reality. At the same time I was speaking about the brevity and uncertainty of life, a fast-moving storm with heavy winds toppled about 20 trees at River Valley Ranch. This resulted in the injury of eight campers, two seriously, and the death of one 12-year-old boy tragically struck by debris from one of the trees. The children had been meeting in an open-air pavilion for Bible study and a song time when the sky suddenly turned dark. As the children were being rushed along a wooded path to a safe shelter about 150 yards away, the storm descended rapidly, violently, and tragically. In a matter of seconds, life’s plans were altered, innocence of childhood was shattered, and the reality of what life was really like confronted 114 teens at that camp. They saw the brevity and frailty of life, not theoretically, but as a horrific reality.
Life is often like this. We have the tendency to put life on autopilot until suddenly and unexpectedly, something barges into our life to shake our status quo. In these unsettling times we are forced to look at life through different lenses, process realities from alternative perspectives, and admit securities we had previously assumed were naïve at best and delusional as worst. At these pivotal points in time, we can either learn a timely lesson or continue to embrace figments of our imagination which assumes life continues on as it always has.
Those who continue to embrace life as unchanging, embrace the philosophy of uniformitarianism. This view of life promotes a teaching that the universe is governed by rigid unalterable and unexceptional constraints. In fact Peter addresses this mindset in 2 Peter 3:4 writing that some people say, “All things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.” He challenges this thinking by saying, “They willfully forget” (verse 5). Then he points to historical events that radically shredded the status quo in the past and were presently being purposefully ignored. Why do people refuse to acknowledge the obvious? Usually it is because the obvious is too unsettling to things as we would like them to be. When events take place like those at the camp in Maryland, the luxury of denial is vanishes. The life of a twelve year old boy and his family has been altered. The inconvenient truth, “We do not know what a day brings forth,” has been validated.
However, there are other realities that can enter our uncertain world. The truth that, “God heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds” (Psalm 147:3) also alters life – even in lives whose status quo has been shattered. The pain of living in a fallen world does not have to be seen as unalterable. God can and does make a difference even in the bleakest and most inexplicable times. He can enter what we see as pervasive gloom with His love and peace planting hope in the ashes of a person’s despair. We need to see the other side of life’s uncertainties – hope. Paul says to people who had experienced the death of their loved ones, “We do not sorrow as other that have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13). Even to that which seems most unalterable, death, God’s Word interjects the solace of hope anchored in the resurrection firmly attached to Christ’s.
While it is true that “we do not know what a day brings forth,” we do not have to live in a state of paranoiac paralysis. We face this reality with the other truths the Bible provides that plants hope in the soil of uncertainty. This propels us to live confidently to God’s glory. It is reported that Evangelist John Wesley was asked what he would do if he knew he would die tomorrow. He replied, “Why just as I intend to spend it now. I would preach this evening at Gloucester, and again at five tomorrow morning; after that I would ride to Tewkesbury, preach in the afternoon, and meet the societies in the evening. I would then go to Rev. Martin’s house, who expects to entertain me, talk and pray with the family as usual, retire to my room at 10 o’clock, commend myself to my heavenly Father, lie down to rest, and wake up in Glory.” Even uncertainty can be faced confidently and productively when it is connected to hope.
