You ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” – James 4:15
In 1999, the first interplanetary weather satellite was orbiting Mars when it came too close and crashed into the planet’s atmosphere. The problem was that NASA made a miscalculation when converting English measurements into metric units. Or consider the polar explorer Robert Falcon Scott who miscalculated the amount of food his men would need on his 1910 expedition to the South Pole. He did not allow enough calories per day for the men hauling sledges at high altitudes. All of them died—not from the cold but from starvation.
In a poem by William Ernest Henley, you find these words, “I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul.” The speaker is prideful, but he is arrogantly wrong! James, in his epistle, speaks of miscalculations—about tomorrow, about decision making, about the futility of one’s own agenda. And, in today’s verse, he offers the solution: seek God’s will first.
Proverbs 17:1 says, “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring.” As for your decision making, consider Proverbs 19:21, “Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.” Echoing that statement, James adds, “What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.” Avoid the pride that you put in developing your own agenda, in mastering your own fate. It is a lie you tell yourself.
Pray for those in America’s government who are prideful and arrogant, miscalculatingly seeking to do only their own agendas, that they would be brought to an encounter with the Living God. Pray for national repentance, and a desire to find and to do the will of God.
Today’s Verse: James 4:15
Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”
All Scripture quotations and audio are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Recommended for further reading: James 4:7-10, 13-17
7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
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. 15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. 17 So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.
All Scripture quotations and audio are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
