The Fleeting Vapor of Life.

Hey friends, today I am pondering how much vapor our lives contain.
The bible says our life is but vapor (James 4:14) – quick, fleeting, temporary – poof, and it’s gone.

So, I’m sitting here in the quiet, my heart a little heavier than usual today. I lost a friend recently—a mentor, a guide, someone who poured wisdom and laughter into my life like a river that never seemed to run dry. And yet, here we are, standing at the edge of that river, staring into the stillness where their presence used to ripple. Death has a way of doing that, doesn’t it? It stops us in our tracks, takes the breath out of our lungs momentarily, makes us look up from our calendars and coffee cups, and whispers, This life? It’s fragile. It’s fleeting. It’s a vapor.

James, that no-nonsense brother of Jesus, put it like this: “What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes” (James 4:14, NIV). A mist. A puff of breath on a cold morning. Here one moment, gone the next. It’s not morbid to linger on this—it’s honest. It’s the kind of truth that shakes us awake, that begs us to ask:

What are we doing with this one, wild, temporary life?

When I learned yesterday that one of my mentors and friends passed, it felt like the ground shifted beneath me. Maybe you’ve been there too—when someone you love or admire slips beyond the veil, and you’re left holding questions bigger than your heart can carry. Why so soon? What comes next? And what does it all mean for the days we’ve got left? I want to lean into those questions together for just a few moments, because I think, in some way, they’re holy.
They’re the kind of questions that pull us closer to the mystery of God, to the heartbeat of eternity.

The Fragility of Now

Let’s start here: life is breakable. It’s delicate, like a clay jar holding something sacred. Paul, that wild-eyed apostle, called us “jars of clay” to show that the treasure inside us—God’s light, God’s love—is carried in something that can crack, chip, shatter (2 Corinthians 4:7). My friend’s death reminds me of that today. One moment, they were here—laughing, teaching, encouraging, challenging me to be better. Next, they were gone, and I’m left holding the pieces, wondering how something so vibrant could be so temporary.

But isn’t that the beauty of it? The fragility is what makes it precious. Every hug, every shared story, every quiet moment of prayer—it’s all a gift because it won’t last forever. The writer of Ecclesiastes gets it: “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-2, NIV). This life is a season, a chapter, a melody that rises and falls. And when someone we love steps out of this song, it doesn’t mean the music stops—it just changes key.

The Afterlife: A Door, Not a Wall

So what happens when the mist fades? When the jar breaks? When the melody shifts? That’s where the questions about the afterlife come in, and oh, they’re big questions. But here’s the thing: death isn’t a wall. It’s a door. Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die” (John 11:25, NIV). That’s not just a comforting platitude; it’s a promise that whatever lies beyond this life, it’s held in the hands of a God who loves us fiercely.

What’s on the other side? The Bible gives us glimpses, not blueprints. Streets of gold, a new heaven and new earth, a place where “God will wipe every tear from their eyes” (Revelation 21:4, NIV). But it’s less about the details and more about the One who’s waiting there. My friend, my mentor, my Grandparents, my Aunt Joy —they’re not gone, not really. They’ve stepped through the door into a reality more real than this one, where the love and laughter we shared here are just a shadow of what’s to come. It’s not some fairytale story, but rather a hope, a reality, an eternal promise.

The afterlife isn’t about escaping this world; it’s about this world being caught up in something bigger, something eternal. It’s about God saying, “I’m not done with you yet.” When I think of my friend and others who have recently made that transition, I imagine them laughing in a place where the colors are brighter, the joy is deeper, and the love is unending.
And that gives me hope.

Living the Temporary with Eternity in Mind

But what about us, the ones still here, breathing in this fleeting vapor? How do we live in a world where jars break and mists vanish? We live awake. We live open. We live like every moment is a chance to love, to forgive, to create something beautiful. Jesus told us to “seek first his kingdom and his righteousness” (Matthew 6:33, NIV), which isn’t about ignoring this life but about infusing it with eternal weight. Every act of kindness, every prayer whispered in the dark, every time we choose love over fear—it’s all building something that outlasts the mist.

My friend’s life was like that. He didn’t just exist; he poured himself out. He listened well and pointed me (and others) toward a Jesus in a way that made me want to run toward Him. His sudden death doesn’t erase that—it amplifies it. It reminds me to live in a way that echoes into eternity, to hold loosely to the things that fade and cling tightly to the things that last.

So here’s my invitation to you, friends: let’s live like we’re made of mist.
Let’s love like we’re made of eternity. Let’s hold the people we love a little closer, forgive a little quicker, and chase the God who holds both this life and the next. Because this vapor? It’s fleeting.
But the One who breathes it into being?
He’s forever.

“The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us” (1 John 1:2, NIV).

Let’s proclaim it with our lives, every fragile, beautiful moment of them.

With you in the journey,
Pastor Scott