My wife’s cousin looks old
With no desire to turn this week’s column into me just talking about our recent vacation, I’ll attempt to explain that first sentence.
Our wedding anniversary is on August 30th, so we try to take a vacation in late August or early September every year. This year we decided to travel to northern Ohio, the area where we both grew up. The plan was to relax and see some people and things, and visit places from our past.
Way back in June, we had purchased tickets to some Guardians games, so that was part of the plan. There is a tourist attraction west of where we grew up that both of us have seen billboards for since we were children but have never attended, so we planned to stop there. On Wednesday night, we attended the church where both Julie and I were saved as teenagers. Julie still has a handful of cousins living in the area, and we had the joy of spending time with each of them.
We spent one afternoon just driving around to the homes we lived in growing up, including the house where Julie spent most of her childhood. She did not recognize it. At first, we drove past it, not knowing which house it was until we turned around and drove by it a second time. Even the house numbers had changed from three-digit to five-digit numbers.
Like many families, we get older, and the only time we see cousins is at weddings and funerals. As time passed, we all became empty nesters; therefore, nowadays, gatherings are mostly for funerals.
Julie is on the younger side of most of the cousins. We are in our mid-sixties, and nearly all of the cousins have passed the seventy-year mark. Before this past week, it had been several years since we had seen any of them. Time has done to them what it does to all of us; the cousins and we have aged. We all look old.
With some of the cousins, we gathered around a restaurant table; with others, it was conversation around the dining room table or sitting around the living room.
The talks were all very similar. We started with what each of us is doing, but quickly moved on to the kids and grandkids, who, in most cases, are already adults themselves. The women brought out the photos, showing the latest pictures of all the family members. At some point, the conversations would move to memories, things they did together as children, and family members who have moved into eternity.
The visits were wonderful. It’s a rare occurrence, but the whole vacation went off without a hitch. On the drive home, however, I couldn’t help but think: since the pattern has already developed that we’re only seeing each other at funerals, when will we see each other again, and whose funeral will it be?
That thought brought a verse to mind, James 4:14: “Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.”
There is so much in that one verse. It shows the uncertainty of presumption. We cannot say something as simple as, “I am going to the store tommorow” with one hundred percent certainty.
The verse makes it clear that future events in this life are hidden from us.
It tells us that life is brief. By comparing our lives to vapor, we see how frail life really is.
Lastly, we see that death is universal. Yes, Julie and her cousins are all in their sixties and seventies. How many will reach eighty? Will any reach ninety? Only God knows. At our ages, we can see the writing on the wall. No one talks about it much, but people of our age know in the back of their minds that time is valuable because the math tells us there isn’t much time left.
Sadly, no one of any age can guarantee tomorrow. My sister died at 26. The best man at my wedding died at 24. I had a great-uncle who died at 112. I’ve preached funerals for infants and teenagers. The vapor for all of us eventually vanishes.
Life after death will last for eternity. Our life here, regardless of how long, even 112, is less than a blink of an eye compared to eternity.
God wants us to spend eternity with Him. 2 Peter 3:9: “The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”
Since God is holy and we are sinful, our sin has separated us from Him (Isaiah 59:2, Psalm 66:18). God’s law declares that the shedding of blood is the only means of erasing sin and reuniting us with Him (Hebrews 9:22).
The sacrifice must be sinless. Step in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, God in the flesh, sinless, holy, the perfect Lamb of God, the perfect blood sacrifice for our sins. 1 Peter 3:18, “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit.”
Jesus did everything necessary for our salvation. John 19:30, “When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.”
We must then place faith in what He did, not anything we have done. It is not our good works, it is not our religion, or anything else we do that grants us eternal life in heaven with God throughout eternity. Faith in His sacrificial death on the cross is the only thing that matters.
Romans 5:1: “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Philippians 3:9: “And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.”
If you are around my age, you understand what I meant when I talked about our visit with the cousins. If you are much younger, please understand that the days of gray hair and the disappearance of that youthful appearance will be gone much sooner than you think. Also, there is no guarantee that your vapor won’t vanish before that first gray hair.
Regardless of your age, place your faith in Christ for your eternity now, before the vapor vanishes.
