We are at the time of the year when people compare notes. What do you have in yours? Accomplishments? Accolades? Milestones? What do you have to show for 12 months (short of 25 days) of athletic activities? Where you a vital part of the rat race or the human race? Or were you just a spectator?
Plans are now racketing off the top of our roofs; next year we will do this and do that. “We will buy lands, and build houses. We will travel to a new city and make money. We will paint the town red.”
We brag and we boast, like we hold in our hands the red and the green button that controls our lives. The red for STOP — as in death, and the green for GO — as in live. And… maybe an orange button also, (squeezed into the middle) for PAUSE, when we are not exactly sure what to do.
We brag and we boast because we are too busy competing, too carried away living up to the Joneses’ standards. When what we should be saying in actual fact is, “By the grace of God, we will do this and we will do that…”
As seen in James 4:13-16… Some of you say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to some city. We will stay there a year, do business, and make money.” But you do not know what will happen tomorrow! Your life is like a mist. You can see it for a short time, but then it goes away. So you should say, “If the Lord wants, we will live and do this or that.” But now you are proud and you brag. All of this bragging is wrong. – NCV
“If you can’t beat them, join them,” goes the popular saying. How about, “If you can’t beat them, lose them!” How about that?