Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Mist on the Water (James: your life is like a mist . . .")


As I was pondering James' words on the brevity and uncertainty of life this past weekend ("What is your life?  You're like a mist that blows away and is gone . . .") Jay was enjoying watching the mist rise from Townline Lake while on the Fall Men's Retreat.  See the photos of the lake--before and after shots of the same scene, about two hours apart.

In some devotional reading I was doing this week, I came across this quote from Evelyn Underhill, a 20th century Christian scholar and mystic that seems relevant to our study of James.  She too writes about humility - knowing our place as frail, beloved creatures.
"For a spiritual life is simply a life in which all that we do comes from the centre, where we are anchored in God:  a life soaked through and through by a sense of his reality and claim, and self-given to the great movement of his will." (E. Underhill, The Spiritual Life

This is the life that James is urging us toward in 4:13-17 - a life soaked in God, steeped in God's will.

peace,
Elizabeth

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