How often do we make our plans without first considering God’s perspective? Planning is important, but planning without a recognition of God’s will and way may lead to presumption. That’s why the Apostle James delivered this stern warning:

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.” (James 4:13)

Thorough planning recognizes the uncertainties of life, but presumption has a tendency to ignore them. Wise planning considers the brevity of life, whereas presumption discounts it. Godly planning takes into account the will of God, presumption ignores God. James was not castigating his audience for planning, but for their hubris in planning with no consideration of God. The book of James has been likened to the book of Proverbs. The book of Proverbs encourages us to plan, but it teaches us to realize that God may redirect our plans:

The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps. (Proverbs 16:9)

Proverbs teaches us that we must hold our plans with an open hand. Could it be that much of the frustration that we experience is because we want circumstances to conform to our plans, rather than us cooperating with the inescapable will of God? Epictetus realized the importance of people accepting their circumstances. Epictetus declared, “Do not seek for things to happen the way you want them to; rather, wish that what happens is the way it should happen: then you will be happy.” James revealed that we must not presume that our plans are immutable:

Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.” (James 4:14-15)

Do we realize that lives are just a vapor? James taught that life is brief, uncertain, and under the authority of God’s will. Many years ago Christians would conclude their correspondence with the postscript, D. V.  These two letters represent Deo Volente, which is Latin for if the Lord wills.

Helmuth von Moltke, the Prussian soldier, taught, “No plan of operations reaches with any certainty beyond the first encounter with the enemy’s main force.” As a young military officer it was drilled into me the importance of planning and contingency planning, but with a realization that no plan survives first contact with the enemy. Dwight D. Eisenhower, another military strategist, observed “In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” Planning must start with God:

Commit your works to the LORD, and your plans will be established. (Proverbs 16:3)

We have a responsibility to make plans, but we should write them in pencil and remember that God has an eraser.

Rick Higgins

Associate Pastor – Discipleship.  The Church at LifePark