Like a Vapor

I felt my mortality in an interesting way yesterday. I have been visiting family that I have not seen in several years and yesterday I visited a lot of land that one of my childhood homes used to sit on. I spent about 10 years there. We lived in a trailer that was removed a few years ago, but my parents still own the land.

The grass and weeds were grown up, but I could see parts of a wood retaining wall where the driveway used to be, an apple tree I used to climb, and a large rock that I once sat on while I smashed small rocks with a hammer. I could remember playing in the yard with our dog, family games of hide and seek, jumping on the trampoline, and my adventures in the woods.

My dad worked so hard clearing that land and caring for the yard. My mom planted flower beds and rose bushes. My sister and brother and I spent most of our childhood there, and now it is almost like we were never there at all.

I felt so small as I stood there taking it all in.

All the works of man eventually come to nothing. Our lives are a vapor, as the scriptures say. Kingdoms rise and fall. Species die out. Even the heavens and earth will one day pass away and be made new.

Jesus is forever. Eternity is a mind-blowing concept and such an immeasurable gift for us mortal creatures whose lives are like a vapor. Living our lives for Jesus is the least thing we can do considering all He does for us.

It’s amazing how much changes in just a few years. I’ve been through a culture/reality shock too these past few days after taking a break from my somewhat sheltered life. This world is passing away and our Christian culture is eroding.

I’ve seen family that once professed faith boldly declare atheism now that Christianity is losing its popularity. They now enjoy ripping on Christians. It’s good and fun to try to get reactions out of us by boasting about sin, laughing at lude videos and jokes made about Jesus openly, or showing distain for so-called silly beliefs like the immaculate conception of Christ and the resurrection. Television and commercials these days. Wow. I don’t miss tuning out several years ago. I am thankful that the Lord pulled me out when He did. My faith would have had no chance.

As the old saying goes, “you can never really go home again.” Thanks be to God that in Jesus we have an everlasting home. All our plans and the plans of the wicked come to nothing, but what the Lord wills is going to be accomplished no matter what comes our way.

¹³ Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain:

¹⁴ 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.

¹⁵ For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.

¹⁶ But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil. – James 4:13-16