Yesterday an 18 year old teenager shot dead eight students at a high school in a small town in Finland. He then shot himself. What a tragedy. What a shocking and sudden end to life. Unexpected death … entrance in eternity … ready or not.
Life is so fragile … death so certain … and eternity so long.
David put it this way …
"LORD, remind me how brief my time on earth will be. Remind me that my days are numbered, and that my life is fleeing away. My life is no longer than the width of my hand. An entire lifetime is just a moment to you; human existence is but a breath." [Psalm 39:4-5 NLT]
"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. Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.’ As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil. Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins." [James 4:13-17. NIV]
How should we then live? What matters most .. for eternity?
I wonder how we would live if we knew we only had 6 months to live?
What would we do different? What would we focus on?
Food for thought …
Our prayers go out to the families of these teenagers – that God may comfort them during this time of terrible grief and loss.