This time of year, as the leaves begin to change color and normal schedules emerge and blossom again, we often stop to make plans for the months ahead. The slower pace and irregular rhythms of summer are giving way to the steady beats of work, school, and church life. This changing of the seasons presents a crossroads where it’s natural to stop and revisit what, why, how, and how often we do all that we do.
And it’s good to plan. “The plans of the diligent,” God himself tells us, “lead surely to abundance” (Proverbs 21:5). He sends us to study the ant:
Without having any chief,
officer, or ruler,
she prepares her bread in summer
and gathers her food in harvest. (Proverbs 6:6–8)
In other words, she plans and works ahead, like any wise person will.
And yet our planning, even our careful and intentional planning, can be quietly wicked. It might look like we have everything figured out and put together, but in reality our plans are foolish and offensive. Listen to the apostle James’s warning:
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit” — yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” (James 4:13–15)
Good and Wicked Planning
In this part of his letter, James confronts the seemingly successful men of his day. In the next few verses, he goes on to say, “Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. . . . You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence” (James 5:1, 5). But before he gets to their greed and self-gratification, he exposes their arrogance. Their success has made them think they know and control their futures.
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit.” (James 4:13)
What are these men doing wrong? They’re presuming to know where they will do business, and how long their business will prosper there, and how much profit they’ll make in the process. They’ve done this all before, after all, probably dozens of times, and so they’ve grown comfortably accustomed to success — so comfortable that they’ve started to presume success.
Before we scoff at them, though, we might ask how often we’re lulled into similar temptations. We may not be traveling to trade in foreign markets, but we all can begin to assume that God will do this or that — in our work, in our marriage or parenting, in our ministry — and fall into some kind of spiritual autopilot. James presses on that tendency toward autopilot until we see the impulse for what it really is.
You ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. (James 4:15–16)
James calls this kind of planning evil. Even if they were right about what would happen, their plans were wrong, terribly wrong.
Three Remedies for Arrogance
James doesn’t merely confront these arrogant men with their arrogance; he also applies what he knows about God to invite them into the paths and plans of humility. And what he shares, in just a handful of phrases, speaks as loudly to our temptations to presumption as it did to those in his day. He reminds these men what they do not know (and cannot know), what they cannot do or control in their own strength, and (more subtly) the one thing they can always do when setting out to plan another season of work, life, or ministry — in fact, the one thing they must do.
WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW
Again, he begins, “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit’ — yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring” (James 4:13–14). You think you know where you’re headed, and how long you’ll spend there, and how much money you’ll make, but you don’t know anything — at least not with any of the certainty you now feel. You can plan and prepare all you want, but reality might depart dramatically from what you’ve imagined.
The business might crumble into bankruptcy — or God might suddenly quadruple your projections. The family might unexpectedly flourish — or some unthinkable tragedy might strike. Your personal ministry might experience an extended drought despite intentionality and effort — or you might see fruit you’ve never seen before. You cannot guarantee, much less control, what will happen this fall, or this fiscal year, or five years from now. You do not know — do you know that?
Given how easily and subtly pride swells in us all, it’s deeply good, spiritually and eternally good, to be reminded just how much we do not know.
WHAT YOU CAN’T CONTROL
In addition to not knowing all we do not know, we can’t do or control nearly as much as we tend to think. James sobers us in the next verse: “What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes” (James 4:14). These “successful” businessmen were looking at their track record and profit reports and coming to some horrible conclusions. Instead of seeing the sovereign and generous hand of God, they thought more highly of themselves. Instead of falling to their knees in awestruck gratitude, they stood a little taller, admiring the strength and ingenuity they saw in the mirror.
What is your life? Are you able to hear the pastoral heart behind such bluntness? “What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes” (James 4:14). And what can a mist do? On a particularly hot day, a mist might bring refreshment for a moment — if it lasts that long. But a mist does almost nothing. Compared with the infinite mind and power of God, we can do nothing.
One way God guards us against arrogance is to remind us of our mistiness. Everything that feels so big, important, and impressive in our earthy lives right now will vanish and vanish quickly. We’re just a tiny burst of moisture, one that will evaporate almost immediately. God, on the other hand, knows everything there is to know, and he can do all things. He invented mists, and work, and us.
WHAT YOU CAN ALWAYS DO
We don’t know all we think we know about the future, and we can’t control all we pretend to control, so can we do anything now when it comes to the next months and years? Is it futile for us to try to plan the future? No, listen to how James guides them out of arrogance and into planning that glorifies God:
Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” (James 4:13–15)
He doesn’t tell them to stop planning. He tells them to stop planning without accounting for God. Stop planning without any reference to the most important part of planning. Positively, make your plans — all your plans — under God. The most obvious way to do this is to pray.
It’s simple and yet supernatural. It’s quiet and yet so countercultural. As you make your plans for another year or season, kneel beneath the meticulous and pervasive sovereignty of God. Remember that you won’t go anywhere or accomplish anything unless he wills. You won’t live unless he wills. Does any rhythm or habit in your life say that you believe that? Is that banner still waving over all you want to do this year?
Wicked Passivity
James strikes one last (seemingly strange) note in this paragraph on ungodly planning: “So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin” (James 4:17). How does that relate to the verses we just read? After telling them what to stop doing, he turns here and ends with a verse about the dangers of passivity.
Given what we’ve already seen, it seems like the first right thing to do would be to acknowledge God in all we do — and not only to acknowledge his sovereignty over our lives, but to actively seek his help and guidance in them. Prayer is not a passive acknowledgment of God. Prayer is anything but passive. Through prayer, we actively and persistently invite the sovereign God to actually do what he’s said he’ll do. And very often (can you believe this?), he chooses to accomplish those infinite, eternal plans by our small, modest, and secret prayers.
However, this verse is about more than prayer (as glorious and powerful as prayer is). When James says, “Whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it,” he’s talking about every kind of sinful inactivity. He’s already warned us about an evil kind of proactivity — making plans and attempting work without reliance on God. Now he warns us about an evil passivity — knowing the hard things God has called us to do and yet refusing to do them.
Fullhearted faith in the sovereignty of God over all doesn’t lead to retreat or inaction. No, this kind of faith sets a life on fire with purpose, conviction, and determination. So, what hard thing has God called you to do this year? Where are you tempted to shy away from a fuller, more costly obedience to him — in your work (or studies), in the local church, in evangelism and discipleship, in marriage and parenting? Resolve now to do the right things you know to do, and do them — at every step — in prayerful dependence on God.
Desiring God