We had been estranged for decades, my younger brother and I; that’s why I prayed for God to intervene. He heard my prayers all those years, stepped in at the right time, and healed our relationship. Time spent together, whether by phone calls, texts, or visits, caused that period of separation to fade into nothingness, and I was blessed and overjoyed the day he shared with me how God had transformed his life.
Prayers for my brother’s healing were once again needed last Summer, but this time it was physical; his doctor wanted to run a series of tests. My husband and I accompanied him to the doctor’s consultation weeks later; his diagnosis was stage four pancreatic cancer.
I am so thankful that my Lord reunited my brother and me, and I had the privilege of seeing how God had changed him. He faced his prognosis with faith that God had the power and ability to heal him, and that’s how we prayed, yet praying at the same time that our Father’s will be done, not ours. God chose to take my brother home to glory in the Fall. He was here, then gone.
“Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life?
It is even a vapor that appeareth for a little time and then vanisheth away.”
James 4:14
James warns us in his letter, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, about confidence in self, saying we don’t know what our lives will be like tomorrow when we plan to live, or go here or there, or do this or that. Instead, we should say, “If that’s what the Lord wants” (James 4:13-15).
Our days on Earth are numbered; they are like a mist or fog that’s here, then gone, after a short while. Use your time wisely, trusting that God knows what’s best for you. James concludes Chapter 4 by saying that we sin by not doing the good we know we should do (v. 17). We born-again believers should add to our prayers and plans: “Father, not my will, but Yours be done,” and rest in His care.
