“Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.”  We’ve all heard that phrase a million times in our life, and we’ve used it ourselves when talking to others many times.  But how often do we really consider the power of that advice?     I have had many experiences throughout my life that have taught me that lesson, again & again.

One of those instances involves the fact that, up until the age of 24, I had never broken a bone.  I had had plenty of opportunities to do that, having survived a couple of car wrecks and having had other significant “thrills & spills.”  But if finally succeeded in breaking one of my bones, on September 1, 1986.

It’s a long & stupid story, so I won’t bore you w/ the unneeded details, but the Reader’s Digest Version.  During the course of that evening, I managed to fall – a distance of around 6-7 feet.  Landing on my back, I actually crushed one of my vertebrae.  It’s called a “Burst Fracture,” where the bone involved literally explodes into incredibly small pieces.  Yes, where for the first 24 1/2 years of my life, I had been able to almost brag about never having had a broken bone, this would no longer be the case.

Very fortunately, even though the injury was as serious as it was, and even though I had been picked up & moved, twice, by people who had no idea what they were doing, I was not paralyzed.  But nevertheless, I had been put in my place, in a sense.  I found out the hard way that I wasn’t invincible after all.

I mentioned the phrase, “Don’t count your chickens…” earlier.  Well, a number of years ago, I discovered the Biblical version to that piece of advice.  It comes from 1 Kings 20:11, and it’s there the Bible says, “He who puts on his battle armor shouldn’t boast like the one who takes his battle armor off.”  Wow.  Yea, pretty much says it all, don’t you think

I like to say to people that I believe that there are a couple of main, overall messages that the Bible contains for people.  1) There is a Creator-God who’s in charge of the world and who has a specific plan for each of our lives, and who desires for us to love him; 2) We are to love each other; and 3) You never know, in life, just exactly how your life will unfold in front of you day by day.  There’s absolutely no telling in advance what kind of experiences life will hand us, and the Bible is loaded with verses & passages that deal with that very truth.

In connection with that last point, there’s the story of a guy who, at the age of 19, decided that he was going to live to be 101.  Knowing that he was going to have to tailor his behavior in order to ensure, as much as possible, that he’d reach that goal, he decided he was going to have to do a number of things.

First of all, he was going to end up living in a city without a lot of pollution, so that his likelihood of contracting some pollution-related disease would be nil, and a city without a lot of crime, so he wouldn’t be likely to be killed by a random act of violence.  He’d plan to work in a low-hazard-risk job, so that he wouldn’t likely become one of those statistics on work-place deaths.  He’d have to start exercising, so he figured he’d go jogging daily, and finally – he was going to have to change his eating habits, including shunning eating pizza for the rest of his life, since pizza is full of fat & cholesterol.

Well, one day, 12 years later (at the ripe old age of 31, 70 years short of his goal of making it to 101), he finds himself at the end of this particular day.  He’s just come home from his low-hazard risk job.  But before going home to a dinner of Tofu & brussell sprouts, he’s taking his routine jog through the safe, city streets in which he lives, free of pollution & crime.  As he approaches the next intersection, he has the green light to cross the street on foot, but just as he’s about 1/2-way across the street, a car comes speeding from the right side into the intersection, hitting him & killing him instantly.

The truely ironic thing about this fatal accident was that the young man who was driving the car that hit & killed the man who’s the focus of this story was in the process of delivering a Pizza to a neighborhood address.  So even though the first man had successfully avoided eating pizza for 12 years, in order to help extend his life to live to be 101…pizza wound up cutting the guy’s life short & killing him anyway.

The Bible says in Proverbs 16:1, “We might make our plans, but God has the last word.”  And in a similar manner 11 chapters later, Proverbs 27:1 warns, “Don’t brag about tomorrow, because you don’t know what will happen between now & then.”

I think you’ll agree with me that although it is good to dream dreams & make plans, when it comes to being able see into the future, you just never know…