How Quickly Things Can Change
by Bill Bagents
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”— 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. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin (James 4:13–17; ESV).
The Lord tries so hard to remind us of the quick-change uncertainties of this world. We’ve seen that with our weather. One day it is extra-warm, then the quick chill. One day it rains in bucket-fulls, the next brings gorgeous sun. We’ve seen it with traffic. A truck hits a pole, and traffic lights don’t work. Restaurants are without power during the lunch rush. Barricades forbid familiar turns. Not that far away, people die in the storms. Houses are crushed by trees. School buildings are no longer safe for children. Thinking more globally, no one yet knows the scope or duration of change associated with Covid-19. As this year began, most of us did not contemplate stay-at-home orders or wearing masks in public. We never dreamed of countless businesses being closed for health reasons.
The Lord reminds us of uncertainty and quick-change through Scripture as well. Joseph moved from favored son to favored slave to prisoner. Job went from top of the world to abject poverty and suffering. Moses moved from “son of Pharaoh’s daughter” to a man under sentence of death to a shepherd in the wilderness. Daniel’s life was a series of blindside dangers followed by episode after episode of God’s deliverance. Saul moved from persecutor of the church to an apostle called personally by Jesus. In Acts 16, Paul moved from chief prisoner held in stocks in the middle of the jail to chief guest in the jailer’s home. Caveat: Some of these changes were not fully accomplished quickly. Still, they remind us of both the suddenness of change and its incredible scale.
It is insightful to watch how people attempt to cope with change.
Some lump all change into a single category, failing to differentiate good from bad, uncontrollable from manageable, and predictable from unforeseen. Then, they foolishly declare all change good or all change bad, limiting options and inviting confusion.
Some pretend that change can’t happen without their permission. “If I don’t acknowledge it, it doesn’t exist. At least it has no impact on me.” Denial never blesses.
Some seek more understanding of causation than is available to mere humans. Some, like Job’s friends, assign false causation.
Some lament life’s uncertainty to the point of despair. “Doesn’t matter what I do, evil still exists, and one day, I’ll die.” True, but good also exists. There are better ways of living and better ways of dying. To die in Christ is the ultimate victory. The Lord Himself says, “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord” (Revelation 14:13).
Some heed James 4:13-17. They recognize both the uncertainty of life and the sovereignty of God. They pray like we all need help and work faithfully as God allows. They plan, but also realize that we don’t run the universe. They know that human flexibility can be part of our choice to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God.
Given how quickly and dramatically things can change, it is easy to see which option is wisest.
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