Making plans

We continued our study of the book of James in our Bible Study last night. This book is so rich and full of life lessons. We have taken a chapter a week. And often times I feel a week is not sufficient to cover each chapter. Tonight we looked at chapter four. James has so many valuable insights that I'll just cover one of them that we had discussed. Perhaps I will cover another one tomorrow.

One of them is life's certainty is its total UNcertainty. James reminds us that 'we do not know what will happen tomorrow.' We often go through life expecting that we'll wake up in the morning. We think we're in the middle of the race or the beginning. But you never know. I shared a few months ago about a soldier here in our community who survived two tours in Iraq and Afghanistan only to come home and die while on a picnic with his family at a lake. God holds all our lives in the palm of His hands and He decides when our race is over.

We love to make plans about our lives. We plan everything. We plan our day. We plan our week. We take long term plans and short term plans. We also set goals way down the line. Again, it's very presumptuous of us to do this because God hasn't promised us tomorrow.

That often leads to disappointment when our plans and dreams don't materialize. James tells us our disappointment is rooted in assuming our plans and dreams will be fulfilled. We think just because WE have prepared and WE are ready, then the plans should fall into place. We sometimes forget to run our plans before God for His approval. In every aspect of our lives, we ought to say, 'If the Lord wills it, we shall live and do this or that.' There's nothing wrong with writing plans. Just make sure you write your plans in pencil, then give God the eraser. Be blessed.