James: 4:13-17 (TLB)
¹³Look here, you people who say, Today or tomorrow we are going to such and such a town, stay there a year, and open up a profitable business. ¹⁴HOW DO YOU KNOW what is going to happen tomorrow? For the length of your lives is AS UNCERTAIN AS THE MORNING FOG – now you see it; soon it is gone. ¹⁵What you ought to say is, IF THE LORD WANTS US TO, WE SHALL LIVE AND DO THIS OR THAT. ¹⁶Otherwise you will be bragging about your own plans, and such self-confidence never pleases God. ¹⁷Remember, too, that knowing what is right to do and then not doing it, is sin.
How quickly and easily we are to leave God out of our plans, and that while the success of our plans are fully depending on Him.
Even better is still not to work out your OWN plans, but to work on GOD’S PLANS in and for our lives. Doing that, you can be sure of his blessings.
Looking for anything good, without God’s blessing and guidance, is usually looking in vain.
The frailty, shortness, and uncertainty of life, show us that we actually are not able to plan anything in future.
After my heart attack and cardiac arrest this came much stronger on me than ever before. Now I absolutely don’t know how I will feel tomorrow, so I can’t even say I will go with my wife to the shops tomorrow.
But actually, if we are honest, nobody can say that, because nobody knows if you will be alive tomorrow, or even if the shopping centre will be there tomorrow.
You have no influence whatsoever on what happens, or is going to happen. It is pure vanity and presumptuous confidence to keep God out of your plans.
We can calculate the hour and minute of the sun’s rising and setting tomorrow, but we absolutely cannot know the time when the morning vapour will be gone. (Vs. 14)
Like the morning fog, so short, unreal, and fading is human life, and with it all the prosperity or enjoyment that you may, or may not experience.
• We are always to depend on the will of God.
• Our times are not in our own hands, but at the disposal of God.
• Our heads may be filled with cares, plans, and thoughts for ourselves, our families, or our friends; but providence often throws our plans into confusion.
• All we design, and all we do, should be with submissive dependence on God.
It is foolish, and it is hurtful, to boast of worldly things and aspiring projects; it will bring great disappointment, and will prove destruction in the end.
Omissions are sins which will be brought into judgment, as well as commissions.
He that does not the good he knows should be done, as well as he who does the evil he knows should not be done, will be held accountable for it.
Oh, that we were as careful not to omit prayer, and not to neglect to meditate and examine our consciences, as we are not to commit gross outward vices against the light!
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