October 24, 2025 | Be God's Family
The Best Laid Plans
Scripture: James 4:13-17(NIV)
13 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.” 14 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. 15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. 17 If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.
Devotional
There are few things worse to see on vacation than watching the condo staff throw the pool furniture into the pool. That means a hurricane is coming, and it’s going to wreck your vacation. I’ve seen that show three times. It’s most cruel because a vacation is usually something planned well in advance, from the time taken off work, to selecting the perfect place to stay, to all the fun things you plan on doing when you are there. There maybe even some “boasting” to friends and coworkers about the wonderful vacation you are going to take.
Like the weather guy on TV, we don’t know what will happen tomorrow. James says that we should be cautious about how we approach our plans. Not that it is bad to have them. We all have our hopes and dreams. Some positive ambition is a good thing; I am reminded of the parable of the three servants entrusted with ten Minas in Luke 19. The one who did the most work to increase the money entrusted to him was praised, the one who did nothing with it was condemned. James recognized this in James 1:1-8 with his opening comments about perseverance in the face of adversity.
Instead of boasting about our plans, God wants us to plan with humility, and to always acknowledge that He is the source of whatever good comes from them. Much of what James says sounds harsh, but it is true. We should not think so highly of ourselves where we come to believe the illusion that through our plans, we can control our lives and our future. Our plans for power, achievement and personal glory substitute a worship of ourselves in place of where God should be in our lives. We are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. At the same time, we need not worry about whether our plans will provide for our future. As Jesus said in Matthew 6:34, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.”
What will our plans of today matter a year, a decade or a century from now? Should we worry about that? Instead, we should trust that God has a better plan for us, and we should focus on how our plans will further the Kingdom of God and serve Him.
Poem
Mist And Vapor
Ecclesiastes 1
“Nothing but vapor,” Ecclesiastes said. “Totally vapor. Everything is just vapor that vanishes.”
Ecclesiastes 1:2
Mist and vapor, chaff and dust
Carried by the wind
Here one moment, gone the next
By each second dimmed
Such are our lives, yours and mine
Each second we don’t own
The length and circumstance of life
IS only by God known
So do not brag about your plans
Accomplishments in store
Instead entrust your life to God
Who closes, opens doors
