“Life is what happens to you
When you’re busy making other plans”
- from Beautiful Boy by John Lennon
My passage to preach on Remembrance Day was Hosea 5 under the title Arrogant Nation; not easy eh! Anyway as I was looking at the arrogance of nations and individuals I came across John 4, 13 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.” 14 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.” This brought John Lennon’s quote straight to mind. Beautiful Boy was written as he was planning to come back into public life with one album to be released, other albums in the can and the thoughts of a World Tour. A few weeks after this song came out Lennon was dead at the hands of a mad gunman. Poignant and prophetic words to say the least.
It is hard to believe that Lennon was thinking of James or of the warnings Jesus gave, of us being mist that comes and goes so quickly, though he did have a reservoir of Biblical knowledge from going to Sunday School and being confirmed in the Church of England, even when his family weren’t pushing it. Yet, it is a great verse to remind us of who we are and to humble ourselves before a Sovereign God who, only in humble connection with, can led us into the real fulfilment of our human design.
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