Thoughts for the Day

Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money.’ Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that.’ As it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil. Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, commits sin.

Come now, you rich people, weep and wail for the miseries that are coming to you. Your riches have rotted, and your clothes are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be evidence against you, and it will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure for the last days. Listen! The wages of the labourers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in pleasure; you have fattened your hearts on a day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the righteous one, who does not resist you.

(Lectionary, New Revised Standard Version)

Thoughts

At first this passage from James' letter seems at odds with all that we know about careful business planning. But we need to remember that James is writing to Christians! His example is of a man who arranges the day to start his journey (either today or tomorrow); he chooses the town of his destination; he decides on his length of stay (a year); and he knows the purpose (to do business and make money). It sounds like a perfect plan, and we should applaud him. The problem is that in his arrogance he is under the influence of "self", or we might say he is an "I" centred person. This affects his every decision and action. Now we could argue that he was doing this to support his family, but James won't have that as an acceptable argument, for either way it assumes that the man thinks he is in control of his plans and their outcome.

How often do we start our day planning to do X, Y and Z - drop the children at school; do some shopping; have a business meeting with someone.... etc! And what happens? Our son is unwell and doesn't go to school; or the bank card gets swallowed by the machine at the supermarket, and we have to go home and sort out a new bank card; or we never get to see the client because his train is cancelled? Such is life, we say!

The problem is that as one of God's children when we do this we have forgotten to check in with the 'Great Planner', with God Himself. When we offer God our plans for the day or for the year we open ourselves to His guidance, and when we do that those "God- coincidences" that we looked at recently, begin to occur. The little phrase "If God wills" should be part of our regular communication with our Heavenly Father.

Heavenly Father,
as we plan our day and our life
let us never forget to ask for Your help,
and Your involvement.
Often we can only see our own concerns
and not the bigger picture.
May we always lay our plans before You,
asking for Your guidance,
and for what might be the best for us -
for our family
and for Your world.
Amen.