That’s right. I’m having my birth certificate checked for fraud!  Something is seriously amiss.  Possible malfeasance!  I have a certified copy of my New Jersey birth certificate.  Along with the original hospital certificate that actually has my footprint on it.  It’s that date of my birth that’s way off…by 10 or hopefully, 20 years.  Who would do such a thing to one so small and helpless?  What kind of demented mind would strap one so young to an early old age scenario?

The word of my spurious birth year has gotten out, and all my classmates think that our 50th class reunion is coming up this year.  Isn’t that something?  All those ‘kids’ who thought they were so smart, deluded into wanting to get together for our 50th when that can’t be right?  Class of ’65.  Born 1947.

Oh no!  No, it’s true.  All of it.  Never was good at math.  They’re right!  50 years later with some of my classmates, the ‘kids’, sadly already past tense, pushing up daisies.  I know how old they all will look– except for me, of course!  How fragile and silly they’ll be– except for me, of course.  How heavy and out-of-shape, except….I better stop right there before I get into real trouble with our invitation to the big reunion gala being revoked!  We’re going anyway.  The dinner money has been paid.  My bio has been sent in for our 50th class reunion yearbook.  Air fares paid for.   Car rental reserved.   Lovely condo in the city where I was born,  with its view overlooking downtown Manhattan, rented and paid for.  Ready or not…

James, the brother of our Lord, says much the same but with more maturity–”Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit’–yet  you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life?  For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.  Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that'”(James 4: 13-15).   Told you!  Basically, be humble as we plan.  Be tentative always allowing for the Lord to change our plans.  Life is short.

I don’t hear voices or see ‘signs’ as others seem to.  I make plans knowing that His plans will rule out.  Proverbs 16: 9–‘In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps’.  Also Proverbs 19: 21–‘Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.’  Make your plans.  After all, life is but a mist, a puff of smoke driven away by the swirling winds of time.  He’ll take care of us.  He’ll give us ‘the desires of our heart'(Psalm 37:4).  Fulfilling those He Himself has put within our hearts.  Won’t that be wonderful?  Go for it!  Amen!

Prayer:  Lord, help to us to make the most of what we’ve been given by you.  In His name.  Amen.