Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this of that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you don’t 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 4:16).

OK…back to James.

How is it boasting and bragging to make plans?  I mean, we’re supposed to be intentional with our lives, are we not?  We shouldn’t just drift. Doesn’t God honor the go-getter, the goal-setter, the man-with-a-dream?

Yes…and yet not so much.

See, it’s the Tower of Babel all over again.  If you read Genesis Chapter 11, you might get the idea that God punished humanity unfairly.  I mean, folks were building a great city, and a mighty tower to go with it, and God brought it crashing down.  What, is God anti-technology?  Or is it that the Mighty One feels threatened by Man’s achievements?

You’re getting close.

Look, there is nothing we can do to threaten God, but much that we can do to threaten our relationship with God.  The people in Genesis were building their tower, not God’s.  They were looking for their glory, not his.  Humanity had a plan, but it was a plan that excluded God, and he wasn’t about to let that stand.

So, what of your plans, Beloved?

Do they originate in a desire to glorify God…or you?

Do they take into account God’s sovereignty…or seek to establish your own?

Will these plans, if successful, bring you closer to God, or push you away?

Think about it.  I’ll see you tomorrow…if it’s the Lord’s will.

Happy Monday, Beloved