Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” — James 4: 13-16
Each morning you squint your eyes open and allow them to focus to the sunlight peering in through the window as your teammates rustle through their things to get ready for the day is a gift, a treasure not guaranteed. If I’m dying tomorrow why not let the babies rub their slobbery dirty hands all over my face as we play? Why not choose the long walk back to the compound in hopes of meeting people to listen to their story and tell them of our Savior’s story? If tomorrow is it— why not have intentionally invasive conversation with my squad mates, to push one another higher to the Kingdom in love? Why not go out of our way to just be light, radically different from the world and solely in tune with Kingdom culture— it will not be a regret. Each day I am in Swazi I cannot believe it, my life is here, we wake with the sunrise and howl with the moon [literally]. We rip sugarcane with our teeth and drink it after a long day at ministry. We don’t watch movies or go “out to eat” for fun anymore— our imaginations run wild again now that we are liberated from the binds of constant access to technology, and now that our only choice is to fully be present with where our eyes and feet are planted— outside of a wandering mind.
As I prepared for this journey I assumed it would happen, but God’s will could have been just my obedience in saying “yes”, and it would have still been good, pleasing, and perfect. Now that I am here I found myself assuming I would arrive in Guatemala [last country] and onto the rest of life on mission— wherever that may be; then I read through James. My life here is only a little while, I am a mist— still cherished, honored, and spoken for, but a mist nonetheless. Nothing, nowhere, and no one is guaranteed, but God ordains still. These days are numbered but each one has potential for practicing habits of contentment and gratitude for our posterity, to be intimately in tune with the Creator and all he has called “good”, to fight for reconciliation and the reversal of systematic oppression, and to be wrapped in an endless euphoria.
Tomorrow is not guaranteed, but my eternity is.
