The Mists of Time

Chances are pretty good that you have heard about the untimely death of Whitney Houston.  She was very close to the same age as myself, and in terms of length of life, hers ended much sooner than it should have.

It was another sad tale of popularity, and the pressure that comes with that lifestyle, that eventually became her undoing.

I was not surprised to hear the amount of stories related to her life and death in the media, but my thoughts went to pondering the reasons for such widespread coverage.  It is not unusual for media to put so much emphasis on the passing of someone like Whitney because so many people were aware of her.  In this, her death is 'news worthy'.  But I had to wonder what people were trying to glean for themselves by talking about her as they did--were they trying to alleviate the pain of loss?  This seemed evident when one prominent friend expressed that 'the party should go on' because Whitney would have wanted it that way.  But I think it is also true that death has the ability to interupt people's lives in a way that makes them pause, even if it is for a minute, and think about things that go a lot deeper.

It's really important that we have a view of our lives from the perspective of the One who made them in the first place.  God values life--He valued Whitney's, and He took great care in making her in His image.  But her stardom and power was deceiving:  it did nothing to protect her from her human frailty.

James 4:13,14 helps us to see our lives with healthy perspective when it says: "Now listen, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.'  Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow.  What is your life?  You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes."

We saw a pretty good 'vanishing act' when Whitney left the scene.  But we must ask ourselves, 'where does that leave us?'  How do we view our lives?  Do we live as though we have everything all planned out and have set aside enough to make provision for whatever contingencies may arise?  Do we find our rest and our safety in our own abilities or do we really understand that we are little more than a mist.

Seeing ourselves like this does not belittle our value, but it does help us to understand where we should be placing our hope.

BT