Time Is Filled With Swift Transition

HOLD TO GOD'S UNCHANGING HAND

Time is filled with swift transition, naught of earth unmoved can stand, 
build your hopes on things eternal, hold to God’s unchanging hand.
 Trust in Him who will not leave you, whatsoever years may bring,
If by earthly friends forsaken, still more closely to Him cling.
Covet not this world’s vain riches that so rapidly decay,
Seek to gain the heav’nly treasures; they will never pass away.
When your journey is completed, if to God you have been true,
Fair and bright the home in glory your enraptured soul will view.

This old song from my youth says, "Time is filled with swift transition." One of my favorite hymns, the lyrics are conveying to us that time is passing away from us quite quickly—and one day we will be numbered indeed among the dead. In a section warning against presumption, in the epistle of James, we find that the uncertainty of life, its complete dependence on God, and the necessity of submitting to God’s will all help us to know and to do what is right. I have no idea what my life will be like tomorrow; and I am reminded, "You are a puff of smoke that appears briefly and then disappears" (4:14). I fervently pray, that when my earthly life is completed, I will enjoy seeing the face of God at the eschatological banquet. May we keep ever before us this certain realization: Only when God is placed first are our lives well spent.