Living a life well-lived
Most folks in our area look forward to summer for the sunshine and warmer weather. Up here in Bonner County we’re accustomed to the cold winters that seem to stretch longer into spring than we’d prefer. So when summer arrives it’s time to hit the lake and the huckleberry fields because as glorious as North Idaho summers are, they can be just as brief.
But this summer was different. The unseasonable heat that stretched across the Western United States did not bypass North Idaho. Very quickly we realized just how hot a stretch of 105 degree days is and how helpless we truly are against such inclement weather. Severe weather always reminds me of how small and helpless I truly am. As insulated as we can become in our own little worlds, we are no match for the wind or rain or snow or heat.
In the Bible, the Book of James talks about the frailty of our lives with candor.
13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— 14 yet 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 4:13-14)
We make can make big plans, we can devise great schemes, but we don’t even know what the rest of the day holds, let alone tomorrow. It’s humbling to acknowledge that the span of our lives on the scale of history is nothing more than a mist that burns off with the morning sun.
On May 20, 2000, Pastor John Piper gave a speech to 40,000 college students at the Passion Conference. His message was, “Don’t waste your life.” He preached about having your life count for something, and the only thing that will truly satisfy is a commitment to Jesus Christ and a life lived for him.
We’re more frail than we realize, more helpless than we’d like to admit, and more desperately in need of God’s grace than we’ll ever know. Don’t waste your life friends; it’s more fleeting than a North Idaho summer. A life lived for the glory of Jesus is a life well-lived. A life that doesn’t end when you breathe your last.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16)
Brandon Herron is lead pastor at First Baptist Church.