Articles
Life Is a Vapor
The other morning I saw something I hadn’t seen in a long time: a sky-writing airplane. I watched as the plane’s smoke trail spelled out the message, “JESUS LOVES U.” Unfortunately, the prevailing winds were hard at work, so that before the pilot was even done with the word “LOVES,” the “J” and “E” had been blown into shapeless wisps of smoke. By the time the fellow finished his message, you couldn’t tell what he had said. (Come to think of it, I’ve heard a sermon or two like that.)
I couldn’t help but think of what James wrote: “What is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away” (James 4:14). Life is short. We’re here, then we’re gone. And after we die, it is likely that our names, our deeds, and our words will soon be forgotten, just like a sky-writer’s message.
But while life on this earth is a vapor, spiritual life in Christ is enduring. He promises his people “an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven” (1 Peter 1:4). Our names are written, not in the sky, but in the Lamb’s book of life (Revelation 21:27). The wind can’t blow them away, the clouds can’t obscure them, the ravages of time can’t fade them. Is your name written there?
