“What is your life? For you are a mist…”  James 4 Verse 14

“Aunty Ayuk is dead?” As a kid, this is one of the most shocking deaths I remember. Aunty Ayuk visited my parents with her husband a couple of days before this. They discussed about the tragic news of her mother-in-law’s death, and I could not forget that conversation because my dad graphically explained the horror of how dead bodies decay. “So, Auntie’s body will decay likewise?”

One of the most liberating reasons never to be anxious is that God is Sovereign over the affairs of life (Deuteronomy 32:39, Matthew 10:28-31). To the unbeliever, this raises more anxiety. However, for the believer, the gospel gives us eternal hope and thus we are delivered from the sting of death (1 Corinthians 15:52-58). This assurance helps the believer to live simply in expectation of our home, free from present anxiety.

Secondly, this also makes the believer to remain confident on a Sovereign God in the midst of crisis. He is confident that God works all things for our good (Romans 8:28) and thus, in life or death, we know He would grant us only what is best for us.

Finally, be warned that God’s Sovereignty does not absolve the need to plan. We will reap only what we sow. However, this text calls us to plan only in submission to the Sovereign will of God (verse 15).

BIBLE READING: James 4:13-17

PRAYER: Dear Father, help me always to reflect on my eternal home that I may be free from present anxieties.

Chima Ezirim