“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.’  As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil.” (James 4:13–16)

James isn’t against planning ahead; he’s against making plans without consulting or considering God in those plans, and then taking credit for it! This is a good word for most of us, I suspect. Our tendency (well, my tendency, as I can’t speak for you) is to go charging off doing “my own thing.” Only after I get into trouble or find out that I should have slowed down, consulted with others and thought things through better do I finally turn to God. Do you know what I mean?

Over time, God has helped me (a) pray and ask God for guidance, (b) consult with others, (c) pray again, and (d) become more patient.

There is a deeper dimension here: since you and I are here for only a “little while” – our three score and ten (now, four score and ten), and since God is God and forever, our primary goal is to try to discern God’s plans for the future and join in what God is doing. That’s certainly the goal we try to remember to do at Trinity. As some say: Figure out what God is doing and join in, rather than figure out what we want to do and ask God to bless our efforts. It’s something that needs our constant attention, because we so quickly go to our default pattern of making our plans.