Life Today, Life 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, you do 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.’ If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.” James 4:13-17
I was reading James this week and was reminded that to live realistically, is to realise that life is fleeting, brief, uncertain, and frail. Illness, accident, or the return of Christ could cut short our lives just as quickly as the morning sun dissipates the mist. In the end, death is the great leveller. But, James’ point is not ‘fear death’. He actually wants us to embrace life rightly.
We have to acknowledge that God not only exists, but that he is the owner of life itself. That he has a plan and that our plans ought to be in accordance with his. Our lives ought to be shaped by and lived in reference to God’s sovereignty and our mistiness.
I think you can diagnose your approach to life by looking at how you make decisions. Do you ask what is best for me? Or do you ask, how can I best serve God? Does your desire to serve God leave the church with you or do you leave it on the seats? Do you plan your day, your week, and your next year as though you were Lord of earth and time and there was no God in heaven.
Now we might note equally that saying or praying “God willing” is not some sort of purifying statement that makes things we do right. It is not a protective talisman. Or immunity idol. To be sure the words “If the Lord wills” can be said with little more than vain hope and superstition; but they can also be the sweetest and most comfortable reassurance to a humble and trustful spirit.
What James urges us to do is to order our live from God outwards.
This passage must drive us to recognise that God has given us our life to be used in service of him. Are you?