Your One & Only Life #1: Life is Short

This is your one and only life.

Your days on earth are not a dress rehearsal, and there are no second chances. You go through life once, make the most of every day, and aim to finish well before your final breath.

Life is over before you know it. “Only a few years will pass before I go on the journey of no return.”1

The Bible compares life to a shadow that will not stay;2 a flower that will soon wither away;3 a passing breeze;4 a whisper in the wind;5 and a puff of smoke that disappears.6 Moses states plainly, “We live seventy years or so (with luck we might make it to eighty); And what do we have to show for it? Trouble. Toil and trouble and a marker in the graveyard.”7

Life races by at warp speed in a blur of daily activities. Someone has written,

“My life is hectic!  I’m running all day – meetings, phone calls, paperwork, appointments.  I push myself to the limit, fall into bed exhausted, and get up the next morning to do it all again.  My output is tremendous; I’m getting a lot done.  But I get this feeling inside sometimes, ‘So what?  What am I doing that really counts?’  I have to admit, I don’t know.”

So we plod through each day and seldom think about our own mortality. Though we know the truth, we prefer to think life will go on and on. Then one day we wake up, realize that we are no longer young, and ask ourselves, “Where did the time go?” Those thoughts are captured in these song lyrics:8

“I once was young some years ago
But where time went I just don’t know.
The years flew by
Like wind that blows when skies are gray;
For I was young just yesterday.
I wish I knew back then that life would go so fast.
I guess I thought back then that life would somehow last.”

Although we fully expect to live to old age, deep down we know that no one is guaranteed a long life. But the truth is: the day of our death may arrive sooner than we expect.

ENDNOTES

1 Job 16:22 NCV

2 “We are foreigners and strangers in your sight, as were all our ancestors. Our days on earth are like a shadow, without hope.” 1 Chronicles 29:15 NIV

3 “Mortals, born of woman, are of few days and full of trouble. They spring up like flowers and wither away; like fleeting shadows, they do not endure.” Job 14:1-2 NIV

4 “He remembered that they were but flesh, a passing breeze that does not return.” Psalms 78:39 NIV

5 “Indeed, you have made the length of my days only a few inches. My life span is nothing compared to yours. Certainly, everyone alive is like a whisper in the wind. Selah.” Psalms 90:9 GNT

6 “You don’t even know what your life tomorrow will be! You are like a puff of smoke, which appears for a moment and then disappears.” James 4:14 GNT

7 Psalm 90:12 MSG

8 Lyrics to “Just Yesterday” © 2012 Steven A. Lake. Available at http://tinyurl.com/nxz3csc Listen at http://tinyurl.com/lxpszkg

This blog post © 2013 Designed to Serve®

An excerpt from the upcoming book Your One and Only Life, © 2013 Steven A. Lake. All Rights Reserved. May not be reprinted, reposted, photocopied, distributed or sold without the expressed written consent of the author.

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