Today I saw a paddle board causing me to reflect on the necessity of experience and strength in negotiating choppy waters and high winds. We can maybe look at the weather ahead with a degree of accuracy and prepare accordingly. However, we cannot do that with our lives, which can take sudden and unexpected turns. We need to be humble enough to recognise that we can't guarantee what our future holds or be so confident that we will be able to handle whatever life throws at us. Only God knows and can help us. The whole of Chapter 4 in the Book of James counsels us on this. Here are three of the verses: "Now listen, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money. Why, you do not even know what willl 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 Lord's Will, we will live and do this or that'. " I say that the 'mist' of our lives, as depicted in the Book ofJames, is of eternal substance in God's hands.