As someone once said; “an accident is something we don’t expect to happen.” Accidents happen, and when they do, our lives may be altered in ways that deeply affect our worldly goals.
The spirit of our age tells us that, with the right amount of effort we can become virtually whoever and whatever we want to be. “If we can dream it we can do it” is one of the most accepted illusions of the 21st Century, at least in the West.
The fact that an aspiring Olympic athlete can shatter a bone and be forever unable to compete or that an idolized actor can die in the same kind of car wreck as one of his or her fans always seems to be left out of the “human potential” equation.
All the self-control and self-effort in the world cannot prevent an accident, or any other number of unfortunate circumstances, that can end a worldly dream in an instant.
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. James 4:13-14 (ESV)
