The Brevity of Life / Alistair Begg

The Brevity of Life

As for man, his days are like grass: 

he flourishes like a flower of the field; 

for the wind passes over it, and it is gone … 

But the steadfast love of the Lord 

is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him.

Psalm 103:15-17

Life passes us by a lot more quickly than we imagine. I vividly remember the birth of my first child—and then it seemed that he was a teenager only a few weeks later. When we were children, just the time between December 1 and December 25 stretched out for years; now the years race by ever more quickly. Suddenly, we wake up older or we hear of the death of someone who was our age, and we realize that life really is very brief. We flourish for a time, but not forever.

As we age, our physical and mental abilities fade, old friends pass away, familiar customs which have been routine disintegrate, and our long-held ambitions lose their potential or appeal. These realities, though, shouldn’t drive us into despair but rather stimulate us. Like grass, we have a limited number of days, but there is opportunity in every one of them! As the Bible scholar Derek Kidner writes, “Death has not yet reached out to us: let it rattle its chains at us and stir us into action.”[1] With the minutes that remain in our lives, we can lift up our eyes and look at the “fields”—at those who live and work around us and who do not yet know Jesus as their Lord and Savior, who are not enjoying the steadfast and everlasting love of the Lord. As Jesus said, those fields are already “white for harvest” (John 4:35). 

The Bible doesn’t encourage us to wait until we graduate or get married or settle down or sort ourselves out or retire before we start to serve Christ. Rather, it calls us to do so today. The wise person knows that we have limited time and that the best way to spend it is on the Lord’s errands. 

So whether you are at the start of life, or feel you are in the prime of life, or are looking back at life, before the strength in your hands fails you and your teeth, eyes, and ears grow weak, will you choose to live all out for Jesus Christ? If you wait until tomorrow, tomorrow may be too late. As C.T. Studd once put it, there is… 

Only one life, 
’Twill soon be past. 
Only what’s done 
For Christ will last.

Therefore, look at your days in this life as the “grass” that they are. Spend them in awe of the God who will love you eternally—and spend them not building your own empire of sand but on the work of the only kingdom that endures forever. And pray that as you do so, the Lord will “establish the work of [your] hands” (Psalm 90:17), both today and throughout the year that tomorrow will bring.

Psalm 90