Life is Fragile — Morning Devotions

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So life is the most fragile, unstable and unpredictable thing that exists in our lives. Life can change so quickly, and you think, wow, I was in control of my life. We can wake up one morning and discover that life has changed and what can we do about it? One day everything is going well. The next day, things are starting to fall apart, and one day it appears that there’s no hope for your situation. But the next day your problem has been solved. So it’s true that many changes can occur over the course of one day. I remember a few years ago the newspaper article sharing what happened in one place of the shifting sands of the Sahara Desert, and over time there was evidence of the remains of an ancient city.

The archaeologists got in, dug and sifted, and eventually they declared it to be a very old some 3.5 1000 years old city, a civilization they’d never heard of. Now you can imagine that here was a whole city, a civilization even that had disappeared, lost for thousands of years. Hundreds of thousands of people who lived and loved and argued and hated and had Children and died just as we do vanished, gone from human memory forever, it seemed, until it was found.

The shifting sands revealed it to the curious eyes of the world. Who were these people? What were their lives like? So it seems to me a lesson that life is fragile. We’ve got to handle with care. That’s why the Bible says in Psalm 90 teach us to realise the brevity of life that we may grow in wisdom now. That was a prayer of Moses.

Moses was someone who was very familiar with how fragile life could be. He’d witnessed hundreds of Egyptians who got swept away in the Red Sea. He’d seen the whole generation of Israelites die in the desert, and his whole life had been one of transition. He had to flee from Egypt. He came back and then going into the desert for 40 years. And at the end of his life’s journey, Moses himself would face death before ever getting to enter the promised land.

And so Psalm 90 if you have a look, it is good topic of how fragile life is and what we can do about it. After all, we want life to be permanent. We long for security and safety for ourselves and our Children. But life can come apart at any time. We might witness a car smash or we fail an important exam at school or we’re made redundant at work and then the usual aches and pains of life. So the life of unknown circumstances can push us over the edge.

But when we think about it, the shortness of life does something else. It helps us to put life into perspective, King David wrote in Psalm 39 verse 4 to 6. Please, Lord, show me my future. Will I soon be gone? You made my life short, so brief that the time means nothing to you. Human life is but a breath and it disappears like a shadow.

Yes, we might take each day for granted. Assuming Oh, well, look, there’s plenty more to come, but we don’t know that. James four, Verse 14 and the New Testament says, What do you know about tomorrow? How can you be so sure about your life? It’s nothing more than a mist that appears for a while and then disappears. In other words, don’t take your life for granted. Life is fragile. Handle with care. We are subject to the quirks and circumstances of life.

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But when we see that we’re in God’s hands, each day is a gift.

It’s like Coryton Boom’s advice – “Don’t draw up a plan and ask for God’s signature. Find out what his plan is and then put your name on the list. We need a God who is permanent. I only have a minute, 60 seconds in it for upon me, but I didn’t choose it. I didn’t seek it. I can’t refuse it. So it’s up to me to use it have to suffer if I lose it and pay a price if I abuse it just a tiny little minute. But eternity is in it.”

Let’s Pray

Father in heaven, you are God from everlasting to everlasting. Today remind us to handle life with care. We don’t know how long we’ve got on this earth. Others may be depending on us today to be kind and caring. Amen.