Don’t be presumptuous! Planning is often a part of a new year. If that is true of you, either personally or for your ministry or both, James gives us an essential perspective on that planning: “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”— 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. Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” (James 4:13-15) James doesn’t condemn planning; he calls out those who plan without regard for God and his sovereignty. He tells those who plan independently to remember life's uncertainty and brevity.

Posted by Bob Schindler at 2023-01-03 14:21:52 UTC