Lessons from the Mist

James 4:13 Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” 14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.

A mist. 

I was thinking about this verse as I went over to the local forest preserve to take photos today.  There was a thick mist on the lake and in the surrounding landscape, the spider webs among the spent milkweed and grasses hung heavy, laden with dew.  In a few short hours, the mist would be gone, burned away by the October sun.

If our lives are like that, why do we become preoccupied with meaningless stuff? 

As Overcomers, we need to examine our priorities because even items of importance seem to take on larger-than-lives of their own, ramped up by a media that hypes controversy and dissention.  Yes, there are things that are imperatives.  Yes, planning is good.

But sometimes, we forget that we are a mist.

We forget that 100 years from now, if the earth even exists, whether the government is “shut down” for 2 weeks or a month won’t really have mattered all that much.

However, the way we treated others during our misty moments can change a whole trajectory of a life and a nation.  As Overcomers, we look for ways to bless people.  As Overcomers, we seek ways to identify with and minimize the pain of others.  We look for ways of living our “risen life” because the days are short.

Sometimes the days are shorter than what we’d planned. 

I didn’t realize that my camera battery was almost spent when I went out today.  I’d planned on a morning of fun photography and really only had 20 minutes before the camera stopped working.  Oh well.  We plan.  We organize.  But the future belongs to God alone.

My priorities changed and I found myself with opportunities galore to be a blessing to others…the women from Germany looking for where to park, the cashier at the store, my family, etc.  Yes and you for whom I write daily.  The days are short and can be humbly filled with blessing.  Indeed these are the lessons of the mist because Overcomers know the future promised by God.  We practice now what we will fully experience as our risen life… when the mist fades… and we see Jesus face-to-face.  Go forth today and be a blessing!