Ready:
“Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will travel to such and such a city and spend a year there and do business and make a profit.’ Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring —what your life will be! For you are like vapor that appears for a little while, then vanishes.” — Jacques 4:13-14
Set:
Former NFL player Sony Michel once posted on social media, “Imagine reading a book with no way to turn back the page. How carefully would you read each page?” This quote helps to put the verses for today into perspective. Our lives are a book, and we can’t turn back the page to yesterday or turn forward the page to tomorrow. But what we can do is focus on one page at a time, on each line as it comes. And when we do that, the pressure of the rest of the book is out of our hands.
Because our life is a vapor, how much more carefully should we live each moment? Not in a scared sense, but in a savoring way. It’s almost like every day is your senior year; a time where you’re experiencing many of your “lasts.” As James points out in verse 14, we don’t know what tomorrow will bring, so every day really could be a day when we’re experiencing our “lasts.” We don’t know when the book will end. Does that mean we play any less hard? No! Look back at Michel’s quote, the point is we must carefully read the page. We get to know the characters. We read slowly and learn deeply whatever we can from each page. And when the page turns, we leave it turned and put all our effort into reading the new page in front of us.
In our lives and on our sport teams, we take life moment by moment. We look our peers in the eye and see them in each moment. We savor the time we have with our families, friends and teammates. We play hard with a humble heart, making the most of every opportunity we are given. We live in the moment. We also trust God and His authority in turning the pages of our lives.
Go:
Do you realize that your life is a vapor? Does this scare you or challenge you to make the most of it?
If you only had one more year to this day to live, what would you change about your current day to day life?
Workout:
Overtime:
“Dear Heavenly Father, You know when my book began and when it will end. I’m thankful it has a place in Your library. I look to You for wisdom in knowing how to live out the pages in between. I can get in the habit of wanting to turn the page quicker than You’d have me to or to go back and relive past pages. Help me to live in the moment and savor each day You gift me with. Help me to live and play as if today is my last. All for Your glory, amen.”