"A Voice says, 'Cry!' and I said, 'What shall I cry?" (Isaiah 40:6). It is not for us to craft a message we believe people will want to hear; the message is already given. Our message is the very Word of God. Faithful preachers and teachers and proclaimers of the Word will open their Bibles and ask, "What shall I cry?" and then they speak what they find in front of them. The message is given, it need not be invented. We need to proclaim only what is in the text, nothing more and nothing less.
"What shall I cry?" God gives the answer: Here is what you are to say, "All flesh is grass, and all beauty is like the flower of the field." But that is not all, for God says our life is fragile: "The grass withers and the flower fades." A voice says "cry!" What shall I cry? Speak of the beauty and fragility of human life. We must know that life is beautiful, precious, a wondrous creation of God, but we must also know that life is fragile. Listen to James 4:13,14 - "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."
To live well, we must know both the beauty and fragility of life. If we learn these truths well, we will be both thankful and humble before God.
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