A Mist.......

So im in the stage of my life where im trying to decide what college to go to and basically what i am going to do with the rest of my life (I swear people are forced to decide way too much at age 18). Anyway as of right now im going to go to UMD in Duluth and most likely join the Air-Force National guard to pay for school either at the beginning or end of this summer (hopefully the end) mainly because they will pay for all my school and I can finish my obligation to the military while there (also since im two years ahead of most of my piers it wouldn't be the end of the world if I got called up) Ive also been toying around with the idea of joining the ROTC program to not only get the military to pay for my school but possibly make a carrier out of it in trying to become a pilot, but this decision will still requires a lot of prayer.
I know im not the only one with all these decisions weighing on them, now is the time when everybody is trying to make their own path and plan their future, and we all have our own ambition of what we would like to see ourselves become. I know I for one have been completely overstimed with all this......however God led me to a verse the other day that stopped me dead in my tracks
"Now Listen you who say "Today or tomorrow we will to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." Why you don't even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, "If it is the Lords will, we will live and do this or that." As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil"
James 4:13-16

.......Im a mist....here today and gone tomorrow. It really convicted me and got me thinking, if I, with all my ambition and all my goals to do great things in the world and for God were to die tomorrow what would my life be? I ask this because in all the busyness of life I have forgotten what is most important, that is living for God...right now. I was planning so much for myself to be a great missionary someday and have all these great credentials behind me and then I would be satisfied that I did not waste my life and would be pleasing to God (also stupid, im accepted because Jesus died for me not because of what i do) but if I were to die tomorrow would I have wasted my life?
A while ago I had watched my best friend's mom die from cancer, I was in the room when it happed. She and my mom had also been good friend and had planned to my knowledge, to after their kids had grown up, done ministry for orphans in another country, a pretty awesome thing right? Well she will never get to do that now, and although she died she lived a life that was full of Christ. She never really got to do anything extraordinary by worldly standards but she did face some extraordinary hardships and in ever hardship i dont think i ever heard her complained. What im trying to say is that she followed Jesus in every aspect of her life even little things and while by no means do I want to belittle raising a family. What I do want to say is that God tugged on my heart to repent of my pride in my ambitions and goals in life, because I dont know what will happen tomorrow and although to live in this world i have to live as if there will be one I also need to remember that my days are numbered and I dont know what that number is, so I should live in a way where if I died now i could still say that i did not waste my life up to that point. To do this I believe God calls me to just be obedient, being kind to my siblings, respecting my parents, being gracious to everyone (much easier said than done) and most of all no longer letting opportunities slide to represent and talk Jesus saying "ill do it tomorrow, its not the right time" TODAY IS THE DAY OF SALVATION" so I cant waste no more time.