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James 4:13-17
Boasting About Tomorrow
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, do you not even know what will 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.” As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil.
Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.
There have been many times in my life where I thought I knew exactly what was going to happen. I didn’t always have completely thought out plans, but I did have the heart, inspiration and desire to make it happen.
In highschool I was confident, without a doubt in my mind, that I would become a missionary. The ordinary life wasn’t for me and I was ready to sacrifice my very being to serve others.
In college, I was going to be a theatre major. Nothing else had attained my interest and I wanted to use my charisma to entertain others and provide a moment of relief during a busy life.
After I graduated college and began my first job, I quickly realized how dearly I wanted to work in the medical field. This was a plan I thought out more carefully than the others. I spent months making the appropriate schooling timeline, considering the financial logistics and investigating which field, specifically, I wanted to serve in. Ultimately, I decided on nursing or surgical tech.
When I was planning my wedding, the moment I had the blessing from my now husband, I knew where I wanted to get married. It was the same spot I dreamed of getting married as a child and before I ever believed in marriage. I spent hours carefully constructing a ceremony and reception with an atmosphere that would ultimately bring glory to our God.
James 4:13-14
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, do you not even know what will happen tomorrow.
Even thinking about the smallest plans we make, how often do they end up changing? We make plans to watch a movie with dinner when we get home to reward ourselves for a long day well done. But by the time we get that opportunity an obligation has raised or we simply just don't have the energy for it. We decide to go get a weekend coffee treat and then realize upon arrival that our favorite coffee shop closes early on the weekends.
We tend to desire a certain structure to our lives in search of the peace of mind reliability can provide. I understand the desire for a strict plan so deeply Friend. I always used to be someone who made a "plan" on the go but after my brain injury, that changed. Suddenly, my whims were set aside and I had a deep, actual need, for a reliable schedule. That reliability of knowing what was going to happen and what was expected of me allowed me to plan my energy accordingly and when the plan went awry, I felt hopeless; like a ticking time bomb.
When we carefully lay out plans for our lives, with full confidence that no matter what else happens our plans will, we don’t leave any room for God’s plans. It's not that making plans for our lives or setting goals for where we want to go is inherently bad. In fact, on the appropriate level, making a plan for finances, career and personal growth is actually wise. The problem doesn't lay with our innate desire to have a plan but rather, we create a problem when our plan no longer takes God and His plan into consideration. If we lay out our entire lives with the conviction of a specific plan, we cut God and His calling out of our reality.
Friend, I truly believe that our God is great enough that He wouldn't be deterred by a plan we have set into motion. But I also know, that our God has given us freewill. If our vision is fixated on our plan, we could walk right by a glorious opportunity our God had in store for us without even noticing. However, when we keep God at the center of our heart and mind, we allow ourselves to remain open to whatever it is He might be asking us to do.
James 4:15
Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”
You can make a plan for what you want to do for your life while simultaneously allowing God's will to be the final word.
A wonderful example of this is when my husband and I were looking for a house. We knew the reason we wanted to move, we had spent hours crying and praying to God about our desire and the need we felt to have an environment conductive to healing. We knew that God had provided for us to even start looking for a house and we knew that the home we got, and it's location, would also be by His will. There were several homes we loved and wanted to put offers on. When they were rejected, we held each other up, refusing to give in to anxiety because we knew we would end up exactly where God wanted us to root ourselves. The moment we truly embraced God's will and trusted that His plan was superior to our own, He provided the wonderful place we are now honored to call home.
By choosing to set our plans according to God's will we have the reassurance that our works will happen by His grace and mercy. It requires a humility of the self and our personal desires to remember that ultimately everything we have and are is our God's. Everything we do is a fruit of His work. When we consider our lives and the work that we do with an heart that acknowledges God's superior plan for our lives we leave room to see miracles.
James 4:14
What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.
James reminds us of our fragility. We are reminded to consider where we have come from and where we will eventually go.
We were made in the beginning by our God’s very palms. We were provided for. We were given free-will and set into the world to care for creation and share the Gospel.
Every moment of our lives is accounted for. You are not your own. You are your God’s. And what an incredible relief that is.
In knowing that every breath, every word, every stray hair is under the mindful hand of our God, the pressure is taken off our shoulders. It’s no longer about making the perfect plan or being the best at something. If we can accept and embrace that we are truly and fully our God's we are given the freedom of pressing towards the mission in recognization that nothing short of our God can stop of work.
James 4: 16-17
As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil. Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.
If we make and pursue plans that have no consideration for God, His plan or His desire to work in our lives, we become useless to the mission. Instead of preaching a message that we are able to pursue goals with humility and trust for God’s plan, we are showing that we can only trust ourselves. We begin to teach a false narrative that we are greater than God and that our plan should be held in a higher regard than the work He calls us too.
We know what our mission is as Christians. We know that we are called to keep our hearts and minds open to God’s plans, even if it pulls us away from our own.
I often think back on the plans I tried to make for my life with fondness. I know the heart that was driving my plans and at the root, my intention and deep desire have always been the same: to love and serve others.
In all honesty, some of my more recent plans still bring me heartache. I still have days where I can’t even move out of bed due to the sorrow of not being able to study and practice medicine. I have moments where my heart turns away from the friends I love, as I see their weddings, and remember the one I planned that never happened.
None of the plans I had created were inherently bad but, none of them happened either. While the root of the desire behind my plan was good, none of my plans aligned with where God was calling me and so, none of my plans ever occurred.
While the plans I had carefully constructed never happened, many other wonderful things did happen in their place.
Instead of becoming a missionary, I went to college and had the opportunity to grow by serving in my Christian Sorority and supporting our brother fraternity.
I never made it through the first year of my theatre major but it did help me uncover a love for education and medicine; specifically in speech, language and hearing sciences.
I never got the chance to go to nursing school. I never got the chance to attain the surgical skills I knew I had the talents for but, I was given the chance to embrace humility and grace.
I didn’t get the wedding I dreamed of; specifically designed to bring glory to God. Instead, every plan was stripped away in the face of a world pandemic and all that was left was what I had wanted from the beginning: a wedding that radiated God's goodness and provision.
You see, every time I made a plan for my life and it fell through, God still provided for me in an unexpected way. My plans didn’t fail to leave me in the trenches. My plans failed to reveal an ultimately better and holier plan.
Our lives aren’t meant to be a showcase of what we can do for whoever might be watching.
No friends. You and I were created with great intentionality and love from the beginning.
Our lives are to be a portrayal of a good and gracious God. Our lives are meant to be a service of love, grace and intentionality upon others. Our lives are a glimpse of a God who saves in faith by grace.
Friend, I love you. I want the best for you. Don’t spoil the incredible plans God has in the works for you by closing off your heart to any idea but your own.
Trust in THE plan. Not YOUR plan.
Thoughts for the Week:
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What areas of your life do you have an easier time handing over to God?
What areas do you reserve within yourself for your own opinions and judgements?
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Really take the time to mull over the previous question.
When you have figured out where you sort your priorities pick one that is currently impacting you the most.
Find a physical way to symbolize letting it go and share a moment in prayer with your Father - asking Him to give you the courage to hand Him the reins.
I know handing over control is scary. It’s hard. It makes us feel out of control and anxious because what happens is no longer ours to decide.
Friend. I know that doesn’t inherently feel like a good feeling but man, it might be the best one you will ever feel. How absolutely incredible is it to let go of something that’s been stuck in our clutches and hand it over to a God who is more about our joy than we are?
Some ideas to “let it go”:
Write it down on a piece of paper and in a safe and controlled location, burn it.
Write a letter to yourself about your intentions in letting this part of “control” go and seal it in an envelope. Tuck it away. You have turned it over. The message is delivered.
Find a light object, like a leaf, and imagine the burden of desiring your own control passing out of your body and absorbing into the object. When you are ready, let it go and let mother nature carry it away.
Share what you are handing over to God with a friend or loved one. Sharing with others gives you affirmation and accountability.
Write yourself a sticky note and place it in a high use area like on your work desk or bathroom mirror. Everytime you see that sticky note, remind yourself of what you are letting go of and what you are choosing to embrace in its place.
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Prayer:
Oh Heavenly Father,
You are good. You are mighty. Everything in your plan is by perfect design.
It is so easy for us to become absorbed and concerned with what has, is and will happen in our lives. It is so easy for us to turn away, without notice, from your marvelous plan because we want to force our plan to work.
Lord. I come before you today and pray for hearts that are willing to turn a cheek, in humility, to our own desires so that we may become more aware of yours.
Help us to trust that your plan is wonderful and good Lord; even if it feels like it might hurt us in the moment. Help us to trust that you are more about us than we could ever be about ourselves.
Give us hearts full of courage to pursue you first and foremost even when logic calls us to rely only on ourselves.
May we hand our lives over to you Lord in trust that your plan is holy and perfect. May we hand our lives over to you in trust that we don’t have to be everything; we just have to be in you.
See your children Lord. Acknowledge how hard we try to fight for you and to you everyday. Hold us close and send a spirit of peace and joy.
We trust in you.
In your name we pray,
Amen
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