Do Not Say ‘Tomorrow’

James 4:13-14

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow, we shall go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.” Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.

It happened so quickly. One moment the white pickup and its trailer were directly in front of me, the next moment it was on the other side of the road and a old red Thunderbird was up against a telephone poll.

We we’re doing about 50 M.P.H. when the two teenagers in the Thunderbird ran the red light. I remember seeing them out of the corner of my eye, quickly glancing at the light to make sure I wasn’t the one running it, and then forcefully slamming the breaks and jerking to the right in my effort to avoid the collision that was taking place directly in front of me. Six lanes of traffic came to an immediate halt. I had narrowly escaped a horrible accident.

Close calls will always make you question life. What if I had been going a little faster or that Thunderbird had been going a little slower? What if the Thunderbird had collided with the back of the pickup and spun into me rather than the front of the pickup and into the telephone poll? Why had the Lord protected me and allowed the couple in white pickup to be hit?

Life is full of surprise and tragedy. It can happen to the most unlikely individual in the most inopportune time. James tells us that life is like a vapor. One day we’re here, and the next we’re not. I realize that the Lord doesn’t want us to question life after narrowly escaping disaster; He wants us to answer life every single day. He wants us to live for Him rather than ourselves. His gospel and the love of Jesus must continually be expressed to others. And most of all, His gospel and the love of Christ must be present in our hearts.

As far as I could tell, there were no serious injuries in the accident I saw last week. God had given them a second chance as well. I pray that it serves as a wakeup call in their lives. If they have resisted the gospel in the past, I pray that this would now open their eyes. If they are believers, I ask that the Lord would help them to reevaluate their life.