13 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” – 14 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. – James 4:13-14
There is a frustrating paradox within the Christian faith between planning and waiting. We are a planning people, there is no denying this. We always look for the next milestone as we prepare to get there. License at 16, adulthood at 18, legal drinking at 21, married at 28 . . . etc. etc. etc. Yet when we look at the things we planned for yesterday, they rarely come to complete fruition, or as we ideally would like them to, today.
Jesus had a sense of urgency within His ministry. It seemed as though He was entirely in the moment. It would be easy for us to see Jesus in complete relationship with those around Him to the deficit of more important tasks, or on a beach letting life “come to Him”. But again, there is plenty to be said about being prepared. All of those prayers, fasts, and healings were a deliberate preparation for something.
In James we see the author sharing a hypothetical that we can all relate to. The character he quotes makes a few presumptions about matters within his life. Where he’s going. How long he will stay. How much he will make. All of this planning is not inherently bad. Yet there is one key factor he, perhaps unknowingly, is leaving out. There is no room within his plans for divine direction. Within our preparation, we must leave room for a God who sees past our plans to our soul’s completion. There is a holy humility within this mindset.
Is there room in our plans for Jesus?
Are we planning in our name or in His?
The beautiful thing about this act of spiritual maturity is that when we plan with Him in mind, we cannot make a poor choice. We do what we believe is best by His guidance, and if He wishes something else, He is more than able to change our course. The decision is ours but the result is His. When we plan with Jesus, we can rest in Jesus.
Life is short. Plan accordingly.
Matt simon blog 