On the nightstand next to my bed I keep a did-you-know, page-a-day style calendar filled with hundreds of interesting trivia facts. Each day I tear off the previous day’s page to reveal today’s new fact. In addition to learning a few interesting pieces of trivia from this daily calendar, the Lord has been using this calendar to remind me of a spiritual truth. You see, on January 1st, when this calendar was brand new, it was about two inches thick. Now, as I write this in September, the calendar is getting awfully thin. It might seem like June and July (the two middle months of the year) were not so long ago, and yet already in September as I pick up the calendar each day to tear off the top page, I can’t help but notice how thin it’s becoming. My bedside calendar has become a tangible reminder of this Biblical truth from the book of James: your life is a mist.

Like my calendar that is imperceptibly but steadily growing thinner and thinner day by day, each day in our life is another almost imperceptible step towards eternity. At best, we will live out our days to old age and see our children’s children, much like my calendar that will dwindle until it is just one page, and then its existence as we see it will come to an end. But that anticipation of old age can never rule out the possibility of our ‘calendar’ being taken away from us sooner than we thought our time would come. Friend, the reality is that one day this brief and fleeting earthly existence will come to an end, and we will stand before the Great and Holy God, there to be judged for the things we have done in the body. James tells us, “…you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes” (James 4:14). Although James’ blunt statement on the brevity of life might at first seem to encourage pessimism, nowhere does James or any other Biblical author imply that because life is short it doesn’t matter how you spend it. In fact, the consistent teaching of the Bible is that because life is short and because our life belongs to the Lord, we must live our life for the Lord.

Because our life is a mist, we must not put off until tomorrow what ought to be done today. Do not think that you can live like the devil now and still have ample time to become right with the Lord later in life. You are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Life goes by fast; so don’t neglect those things that are most important. Spend your life for the Lord. Give your years to serving him. Use your days to know him more and more. Yield your hours, your minutes, even your moments for him to use as he sees fit.