Preface
Preface
“What Is Your Life . . . ?” (James 4:14)
One of my favorite magazine cartoons shows two cows in a pasture, looking over the fence at the traffic going by on the highway. A milk truck is passing, displaying these words on the side panel: “Johnson’s Milk—Pasteurized—Homogenized—Vitamins C and D Added.” One cow says to the other one, “Sort of makes you feel inadequate, doesn’t it?” After hearing many negative sermons and reading many critical book chapters and magazine articles, I get that same bovine feeling, and I wonder why somebody doesn’t start accentuating the positive and telling God’s people what a great and wonderful life we have as Christians.
But not everybody has a positive view of life. Jewish writer Shalom Aleichem (who gave us Tevye the milkman in Fiddler on the Roof) said that life was “a blister on top of a tumor, and a boil on top of that.” James M. Barrie, who wrote Peter Pan, said that life was “a long lesson in humility,” and American poet Carl Sandburg compared life to an onion: “You peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep.” Famous trial lawyer Clarence Darrow called life “a span of time in which the first half is ruined by our parents and the second half by our children.”
The Bible doesn’t deny that life has its battles and burdens as well as its blessings. Some of the writers of Scripture see life as a refiner’s furnace (Job 23:10), a violent storm (Ps. 42:7), a battle (2 Tim. 2:3), or a difficult race to run (Jer. 12:5). Not only do these writers tell us that life is difficult but they also warn us that life is brief and fragile. When the Lord gave Adam life, He “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life” (Gen. 2:7), and breath has always been associated with brevity and weakness. “Everyone is but a breath,” wrote David, “even those who seem secure” (Ps. 39:5 NIV). “What is your life?” asked James. “You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes” (4:14 NRSV). Human life began with a breath, it continues with our breathing, and will end in a moment when we breathe our last. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were important and powerful people, but all three “breathed their last” (Gen. 25:8; 35:29; 49:33) and it may be our turn sooner than we expect.
Difficult circumstances we can’t always control also contribute to the problems and demands of life, and from ancient days, people have complained about “the times.” David lamented in Psalm 11 that all the foundations of life had been destroyed (v. 3) and in Psalm 12 that faithful men and women had vanished from the earth (vv. 1–2). On March 23, 1783, British writer Samuel Johnson said to his friend James Boswell, “I have lived to see things all as bad as they can be.” About that same time, Thomas Jefferson wrote in his Notes on the State of Virginia, “Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.” Playwright George Bernard Shaw complained, “If the other planets are inhabited, they’re using earth as their insane asylum.”
So much for the depressing outlooks on life. The heart of every problem is the problem in the heart, and only our Lord can change the human heart. This book is about the kind of life God wants to give us and how we can receive it through His grace and power. The habits that bind us, the negative attitudes that depress us, the people who bother us, the needs that worry us, and the challenges that frighten us can all be creatively handled by the Lord if we will let Him have His way.
Read and digest the first chapter and be sure of your relationship with the Lord. Then read the table of contents and decide which chapter or chapters best describe your current situation. Start reading there. Each of the chapters is a complete unit, so the choices are yours. Please don’t speed-read the chapters but instead read them as if you and I were privately and calmly discussing each one with open Bibles before us. Take time to ponder and pray, and give the Lord opportunity to teach (or remind) you of what you need to know at this time. When I cite Scripture verses that I don’t quote, please keep your Bible handy to look up each reference and read it carefully.
Finally, ask the Lord to help you put into practice the principles you are learning. Our obedience turns words into works, and that’s the best way to experience spiritual growth. Learning that ignores real living produces a big head but a cold heart and a weak will. Paul warns us that “knowledge puffs up while love builds up” (1 Cor. 8:1 NIV).
“Your words were found, and I ate them, and Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart, for I am called by Your name, O LORD God of hosts” (Jer. 15:16).
Warren W. Wiersbe