A Vapor

Step outside on one of these cold winter days, and watch your breath as you exhale. In all seriousness. Don’t just read this article. Go outside, literally, someday soon, and observe the vapor of your breath as it eases from your lips … and then disappears, so very quickly, from before your gaze! Why? Why go out into the cold to take in such a sight? Because this is a portrait, says James, of your life in this world! “You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away” (James 4:14). And it will do you good to go outside, and to envision what James has written, and to consider the brevity of your life. And, as you consider that brevity; as you meditate on the fleeting nature of the vapor, I hope three demeanors of heart and mind will come over you:

First, humility. This is the demeanor that James is promoting when he likens our earthly lives to vapors: ‘“You do not what your life will be like tomorrow.” Your life is so fleeting! And therefore you ought not to go making boastful plans about where you are going to go, and what you are going to do. “Instead, you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that’”’ (see James 4:13-16). The fragile, fleeting, vapor-like nature of our lives ought to humble us into a constant awareness that our plans, and even our awaking tomorrow morning, are always ‘Lord willing.’

And then also, the vapor-like brevity of our lives in this world ought also to promote a sense of urgency. If life is a vapor, shouldn’t I want to capture the few brief ticks of the clock that I have been given, and use them well for the One who gave them? Life is too short for spiritual dilly-dallying! It’s too short for just whiling away the months and years, not really doing anything that will make an impact for eternity! You only have a few years (if the Lord even wills for you to have that long) in which to serve the gospel in this world! Don’t dawdle that time away! And let me remind you, also, that since life is so short; and since we don’t know how short (since we don’t know if we will even wake up tomorrow), it is great folly to put off being ready for your own eternity! You don’t know if you will have tomorrow, or next week, or next year to repent of your sins and trust in Christ! So do it before your vapor disappears!

And then also, as you consider the vapor of your life, may such a consideration, if you are in Christ, bring you serenity. For, if this life is a vapor that will soon fade away, then those who are in Christ don’t have very much longer to endure their trials, do they? The non-Christian will perhaps take some of his difficulties with him, even into the next life (and will then face even greater difficulties, to boot). But for the believer, “the sufferings of this present time” will evaporate along with the vapor of earthly life in which they arose! And since vapors are but brief, relief is not too far in the future! It won’t be long and we will be with Jesus! And all will be well! And that should make us just a little more calm in the face of our trials! Someday soon we will suffer, and struggle, and sin no more!

So step out, in the days ahead, into the cold winter’s air, and learn the lessons of the vapor.

"More hope for a fool"

The first eleven verses of Proverbs 26 have some strong words to say concerning fools – don’t honor a fool (vv.1,8); don’t trust a fool as your courier (v.6); don’t hire a fool (v.10); there is “a rod for the back of fools” (v.3); and other pointed statements as well! Indeed, ten of these first eleven verses of Proverbs 26 speak to the subject of fools … so that we have, in this portion of scripture, some very practical counsel for how to respond to them!

But then, in verse 12, comes this brief and fascinating little surprise:

“Do you see a man wise in his own eyes?

There is more hope for a fool than for him.

Wow! After all he has said about the folly of fools (and perhaps after we have nodded our heads, knowingly, at his description of the very sorts of people that we actually know), Solomon throws verse 12 in for a kicker … saying, in effect: ‘But, as bad as it is to be a fool, there is someone worse off, even, than that! For even a fool has more hope than “a man wise in his own eyes”!’

Now, first we must ask: What does Solomon mean by “wise in his own eyes”? What sort of person is he critiquing? Does he have in mind the person who thinks himself wise, but who actually isn’t as enlightened as he thinks? Or is he referring to the person who actually has accumulated some wisdom, but is all too aware of that fact, to the point of arrogance? I tend to think it is probably the former, rather than the latter (see vv. 5 and 16 for contextual clues). Neither position is a good one, of course! But I believe Solomon is probably referring, in verse 12, to the man who believes himself to be wise, but who isn’t nearly as sage as he thinks.

And Solomon’s statement, there in v.12, comparing this over-confident man with the fool … that statement would be quite striking, even if we just took it by itself. It would be a significant thing to say, even if it were said in a vacuum, that is better to be a fool than to over-estimate one’s own wisdom! But Proverbs 26:12 does not come to us by itself; it does not exist in a vacuum! We find it, rather, at the tail end of the eleven verses that precede it … ten of which portray for us the fool in all his folly!

And it’s quite the unflattering portrait, isn’t it … this portrait of a fool? Solomon’s brushstrokes reveal the character of a person who is untrustworthy; whose counsels are not worth heeding; who is not to be honored; who needs sometimes to be put in his place; and who (like an animal) requires stern discipline to keep him on track. He’s a sad clown of a man, the fool.

And yet even this man has “more hope” than “a man wise in his own eyes”! Because perhaps the fool will receive the rebuke “his folly deserves”, and at least allow himself to be put in his place (v.5). But “a man wise in his own eyes” will think he knows better, even when the rebuke has come! And nor will he seek out or listen to more gentle forms of counsel, either! He already has the answers!

Beware of this, brothers and sisters! Beware of over-estimating your own wisdom! Beware of being unteachable! Beware the folly by which we spurn the counsel of God and of others – or (maybe even more often) by which it just never occurs to us to ask for such counsel – because we have yet to learn (or perhaps to accept!) just how little wisdom we ourselves have actually obtained, and how much we still have to learn.

There is great wisdom in realizing that you are not as wise as you might be tempted to think … and in seeking wisdom from God and from wise fellow men and women! Have you come to realize that? Are there areas in which you need to humble yourself, and to admit that you need counsel, and to seek it out, and to heed the wisdom that God provides you through it? Is there counsel or rebuke that you have spurned, but need to revisit? Bad as it would be for you to be a Proverbs 26 fool, there is even less hope for the man, woman, girl, or boy who thinks he already has all the answers!

"Before I was afflicted I went astray"

Part of a series of articles, entitled 20 years a Christian, recalling some of the important lessons I have learned in nearly two decades as a believer in Jesus.

Some people seem almost to be born into suffering. Others of us grow well into adulthood before stumbling upon any really difficult times. Some, in fact, who read these lines are still waiting for the day of severe trial to come upon us. But all of us, if we simply live long enough in this fallen world, will eventually face what James calls “various trials.” It is part of living under the curse that has been brought upon the world by sin.

And yet James says that we should “consider it all joy” when we find ourselves caught up in these thorns of sin’s curse. “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials.” What? How can that be? Well, God has many purposes of grace which, like roses, come attached to our thorny trials. But in this brief space, let me just mention one, in the words of the psalmist:

“Before I was afflicted I went astray,

But now I keep Your word.”

Psalm 119.67

Suffering, says the psalmist, made him more obedient to God! And this is one of the great lessons I have learned in my nearly twenty years as a believer in Jesus Christ. Suffering, in the hands of a gracious and kind God, can be like sandpaper, smoothing out the parts of our character that are still a little too rough hewn. I had heard this preached from Psalm 119, of course – even preached it myself, from this very passage! But until a little over a year ago, I am not sure I had learned it by experience. For, up until last February, I was still in the category of those who had not yet lived long enough to fall very far into life’s “thorns and thistles.” I had lived 35 years with very little of what might be called real tribulation.

But one winter Wednesday morning, for reasons that are too much to detail in this space, I found myself tumbling head over heels into a deep and long bout with what may only be called severe anxiety. Every day was a battle not to panic over some fear or other. And some days, if I could have painted myself in a word picture, I was reduced to nothing more than a puddle of emotions on the ground. Still to this day, I wrestle with anxiety and fear (albeit, thanks be to God, on a very low level, comparatively). But through this suffering, God really has helped me to better keep His word.

For one thing, He has shown me how weak and fragile I really am; how easily I will crumble if not upheld by His grace. And that has been one blessing of my struggles – being shown my weakness, and truly humbled. “Before I was afflicted” I thought I had my life basically together. I thought I was one of those ‘mature’ Christians … the kind who help others, but don’t need a great deal of help themselves! In short, I was not anywhere near as humble as I ought to have been. And I am still not. But I hope that my suffering has ever so slightly increased my obedience to the scriptures’ commands concerning humility.

And that humbling has, I hope, made me a more obedient follower of Jesus in another way as well. I have been brought, I think, to a much fuller obedience to the biblical teachings concerning compassion – and particularly with those who just can’t seem to get it together emotionally or mentally. God let me live, for a few months, inside the dungeon in which many people spend years or decades … so that, when I came out, I might love those people a great deal more like Jesus does. And love is really important. “Before I was afflicted” I did not know how to love fully; I did not have an appropriate level of compassion toward certain people. And I still have a lot of learning to do … and perhaps some more sandpaper to endure. But through my suffering, I definitely grew to better keep God’s word in this one area.

So in some small way, I have begun to be able to say with the psalmist: “Before I was afflicted I went astray, But now I keep Your word.” And that has been another of the most important lessons of my almost two decades as a Christian.