What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. (James 4:14)
Expanded Passage: James 4:14
Groups gather to play trivia every week at a restaurant. As the questions are called, they discuss responses. The debate is intense but short-lived, as the timer presses them to decide on a unified response, which is delivered to the trivia host. Everyone awaits the outcome. Cheers erupt from the tables that submitted the right answer; groans from the others. Between tables of competitors are families enjoying their meals, often oblivious to the game being played around them.
Believers attend church, study the Word, and try to get the answers right. We experience joy when we are moving in the right direction. We have the desire to achieve something—to be on the winning side. That’s why this verse could be discouraging, making us feel small and insignificant. Our lives are nothing but a mist that vanishes? Should we just sit it out as observers, watching others succeed or fail?
Not at all! We aren’t just a mist that will vanish one day (though we all will). James’ word appears means “shines.” You weren’t created to merely exist. You were created to shine! God said that he “made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6). For the little while that we are here, it is wise to shine Christ’s light.
Go into the world and shine!
Priscilla Hammond is an ordained pastor and associate professor in the Benson School of Business at Southern Wesleyan University (SC).
© 2024 Wesleyan Publishing House. Reprinted from Light from the Word. Used by permission. Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®.
