"What Is Your Life?"
Life is brief. How we live matters.
Reflecting on the brevity of life, James 4:14 offers this insight,
“For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.”
Few of us who have lived long in this life would deny this truth.
One day we are nervous about our first day of school, and the next we are watching our own grandchildren walk across the stage at graduation. One day we are teenagers celebrating summer break blasting music with car windows down, and the next those hot new pop songs make up the oldies lineup at the local senior citizen dance.
Despite knowing life is brief, we often live unexamined lives under the impression that we will have more time.
While we cannot know the exact length of our days or the challenges they will bring, we can consider and choose the mindset we embrace as we move through our lives.
When looking at our world, some choose to live a constantly critical life.
There is certainly much wrong in our world from destructive weather to tragic accidents, crime and violence, corruption and injustice, physical disease and spiritual darkness. All who are paying attention see these challenges and these hardships around us, but many of us seek to balance these harsh realities alongside the good that exists in our lives.
The person who embraces a critical life ends up almost wanting bad to happen so that their own cynical, bitter judgment is proven right. In this mindset, the person comes to discount anything positive that could offer hope that there is good left in our world.
To paraphrase the folk song, such a person sees what he wants to see and disregards the rest. This lens of cynicism blinds the soul to any beauty or goodness in the world.
Such cynicism is rarely formed in a single moment or even from a single negative experience, but by the accumulation of many smaller negative moments and reactions that compound over time. Without balance, the critical person is doomed to harshness and often a self-created isolation.
While we may manage to avoid such a completely cynical outlook, many of us seek stability by leading compartmentalized lives.
In order to survive in an overwhelming world, we divide our larger lives into smaller sections and parts that, at least in theory, can be managed more easily.
We may have “work life,” “family life,” “school life,” “church life,” and so on. We come to think we can keep these areas from overlapping too much, and we approach each day with the idea of divide and conquer. We often come to realize that while this compartmentalization may be efficient for a season, it becomes an unfulfilling and highly-conflicted way to live.
We may do a lot, but nothing is done fully or well. We focus on one goal, but leave other important matters neglected. We lean into the areas we enjoy and value most while pushing off the deadlines and demands of compartments we find challenging or uncomfortable. When our self-imposed compartments inevitably come into conflict, we end up living with more and more anxiety and tension of our own making. In dividing our lives, we cannot bring our whole selves to any one aspect, our actions are hindered, and our relationships suffer.
Rather than basing our lives in criticism or living so compartmentalized that we struggle to ever be genuine, we can intentionally choose a committed, Christ-centered life.
Both the commitment and the focus on Christ are vital to those who take this path. On the surface, a committed life of any kind may sound positive, but it is only a better option if our guiding commitments are founded in what is good, beautiful, and true.
Being Christ-centered is essential. Without Jesus as the focus, we cannot endure the trials of life. Without true relationship with Him, the life of faith often begins in a burst of excited enthusiasm only to fade without the enduring commitment that must validate such a conversion over our lifetime. Only when love for Christ is central is the life with Christ possible.
Being both committed and Christ-centered forms the lasting combination that shapes a faithful life. Life is brief, and yet the approach we take to life shapes not only our own days and outlook but also impacts the many lives that intersect our own.
When the commitment to Christ is primary, criticism recedes and can be replaced with an anchored optimism. When the commitment to Christ is primary, I no longer withdraw into different compartments with different people, but allow His presence to be at the center of each sphere of my life.
We cannot know what will befall us or how soon our own vapor will vanish, but we can commit to centering our days in the One who not only knows us fully but also values our lives far beyond our own understanding.