Discussion Jumpstarter
Study leader reference - not a definitive answer
Question 1
Chewachu opened with James 4:14 (“your life…a vapor”); how did that perspective on life’s brevity shape the way he interpreted the last four years, and what does it suggest about what God is doing when time feels like it “vanishes away”?
Another way to ask: James says life is like a vapor. How did that idea shape how Chewachu looked at the last four years, and what might God be doing when time seems to disappear?
Discussion Jumpstarter
Direct Answer
Chewachu used James 4:14 to frame the last four years as surprisingly short—“like yesterday”—and that made him read his whole journey (moving to the U.S., meeting believers, surrendering to Jesus) as God’s purposeful work in a brief, fragile life. It suggests that when time feels like it “vanishes away,” God may be using that very brevity to wake us up, humble us, and push us toward what matters.
- He begins with James 4:14: life is “a vapor…for a little time and then vanishes away.”
- He says reviewing pictures from “almost four years ago” made him feel it “was like yesterday. Time is so fast.”
- Those pictures were tied to key spiritual milestones: “the time I landed…met people…[and] the time I knew God and I got surrendered.”
- In the valley he later says God “gave it to me to make me humble…to seek His kingdom.”
- In his closing, he thanks God for valleys that taught him to “trust on Him and rely on Him, not myself.”