Reality Check: Life Is Short

Have you heard the one about a man who went in for his annual checkup and received a phone call from his doctor a couple of days later?
“Hi, Doc!” the man said. “What’s going on?”
“Hi, Doc!” the man said. “What’s going on?”
“I’m afraid I have some bad news for you.”
“What’s the news?” the man asked.
“Well, you have only 48 hours to live,” said the doctor.
“That IS bad news!” said the shocked patient.
“I’m afraid I have even worse news,” the doctor continued.
“What could be even worse than what you’ve already told me?” the patient stammered.
“I’ve been trying to call you since yesterday.” (PreachingToday.com)

Yes, life is short—perhaps even shorter than we would like to think. Now, granted, that’s the opposite of what we’d call, “good news.” Nonetheless, that’s life. That’s reality.

The Bible doesn’t deny the reality of our mortality, either. It’s sad, but true. Our days are numbered.

While under extreme suffering, Job declared before God in Job 14:

¹ “How frail is humanity!
    How short is life, how full of trouble!
² We blossom like a flower and then wither.
    Like a passing shadow, we quickly disappear.
³ Must you keep an eye on such a frail creature
    and demand an accounting from me?
⁴ Who can bring purity out of an impure person?
    No one!
⁵ You have decided the length of our lives.
    You know how many months we will live,
    and we are not given a minute longer. (New Living Translation, NLT)

David recognized that our days were known and ordained before we were born. In Psalm 139, he says to God,

¹⁵ You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion,
    as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.
¹⁶ You saw me before I was born.
    Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
Every moment was laid out
    before a single day had passed. (NLT)

In Psalm 90:10, Moses stated,

Seventy years are given to us!
    Some even live to eighty.
But even the best years are filled with pain and trouble;
    soon they disappear, and we fly away. (NLT)

Here are more Bible passages about life being short and fleeting:

• Ecclesiastes 6:12 “Life is short and meaningless, and it fades away like a shadow.”
• Job 14:1 “For a mortal born of a woman is short lived, and full of wrath.”
• James 4:14 “How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone.”
• 1 Peter 1:24-25 “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.”

All these passages describe the reality that life is short. Ever since man first sinned, our days have been numbered. Even during the antediluvian (Pre-Biblical Flood) period in the Bible when people lived to be hundreds of years old like Adam (930 years, Genesis 5:5); Seth (912 years, Genesis 5:8); and Noah (950 years, Genesis 9:29), their days came to an end, too. Then, there’s the oldest living man on record, Methuselah who lived to be 969 years old, then he died, as well. (Genesis 5:27).

Now, to us, we’d think if we lived that long it wouldn’t seem so short to us. In fact, 900+ years almost seems like forever. But since it was so common to live that many years in those times, I venture to say it probably would not have seemed so long to them. From a mortal viewpoint, don’t you imagine when their time came they would not have minded to live just a little longer?

By the way, Enoch who “walked with God” only lived to be 365 years old (Genesis 5:23-24). To the people living back then, he must have seemed like a young man compared to how long they lived!

It was after the Great Flood when the earth was once again being repopulated, God began to shorten the average span of life. People were no longer living to be many centuries old like before the Flood. And the reason? It was because of human corruption once again (Genesis 6:1-2). So it says,

“Then the Lord said, ‘My Spirit will not put up with humans for such a long time, for they are only mortal flesh. In the future, their normal lifespan will be no more than 120 years,’” (Genesis 6:3, NLT).

Now we fast forward to our time. Who wouldn’t want to live to be up to 120 years old now? Some might think that length of years will come someday in the future with new medical discoveries and ways to live healthier lifestyles. But we still have to come back to reality.

In comparison to our length of days—even for those who live to be over 100—you might think life would not seem so short if you COULD at least live to be 120. But knowing human nature, I dare say that would be satisfactory. We’d always like more as long as we’re not suffering in mind and body.

According to a Time newsletter article titled, “Why Do People Want to Live So Long, Anyway?” by Mandy Oaklander (2/16/2017) a majority of Americans do want to live longer. It says,

In a survey from the Pew Research Center, nearly 70% of American adults said they wanted to live to be up to 100 years old. But why? “The quest to live forever, or to live for great expanses of time, has always been part of the human spirit,” says Paul Root Wolpe, director of the Emory Center for Ethics.

So, to live to see one’s golden years is something we don’t want to take for granted. We know life is short regardless of the number of years God gives us to live on this earth. And this is why we pray to our Maker,

So teach us to number our days, that we may present to You a heart of wisdom. (Psalm 90:12, New American Standard Bible, NASB).

By realizing the brevity of life, we don’t want to waste time pursuing the foolish things of this world (1 Corinthians 1:26-31). Rather, we strive to make every moment of our lives count every day, striving to grow and live according to the wisdom of God. Like the words from the poem,

Only one life, ’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.

For through the life we receive in Christ, God’s Son, we can look forward to the Great Day of his coming—when all the faithful put on immortality and incorruption. Life will no longer be short but eternal, instead. As the Apostle Paul wrote,

⁵⁰ Now I say this, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. ⁵¹ Behold, I am telling you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, ⁵² in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed…. ⁵⁸ Therefore, my beloved brothers and sisters, be firm, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord, (1 Corinthians 15:50-52, 58, NASB).

And that’s another reality check we can accept through Christ!

Good News to YOU!
Pastor Michael
P.S. Since life is short, only Jesus is the One who can make it count. Here’s Casting Crowns with “Only Jesus,” https://youtu.be/TAtx1y58jS0