Your Life is a Vapour

James 4:14 (KJV)  "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."

I confess that lately I have been dwelling on the cares of this world instead of being focused on heavenly things.  After all, a Christian is a pilgrim passing through, this world is not our home and we are admonished to "set your affection  on things above, not on things on the earth" (Colossians 3:2)  Last week there was an incident that has brought home the fact that our lives are very brief, and we do not know what the next moment will bring.

We had been shopping in a city north of us an hour away.  It was, as our weather has been for a time, a very hot day.  On the drive home the air conditioning was on and my husband and I were talking about various things.  But then the traffic became slower, bumper to bumper, it crawled along and then stopped.  I thought that surely there was an accident ahead perhaps at the airport turnoff intersection as there was also very little traffic heading in the other direction.  After some time had passed and we were barely moving, we passed the airport intersection (which was clear) and could then see that the traffic jam stretched as far ahead as we could see.  The car wasn't doing much more than idling and I thought that perhaps it might not be a good idea to run the air conditioning so we turned it off and wound down the windows.