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.

(Church in Wales Lectionary, New Revised Standard Version)

Thoughts

Working as a Diocesan Officer I once left my Filofax diary on top of my car roof, and then drove to my office on a wet evening only to discover what I'd done. At this point panic set in since I had appointments in my diary for months ahead, sometimes as many as 4 or 5 a day. How could I possibly remember them? I drove home checking the wet streets. Sure enough there was the diary, but with no paper in it. Then a few yards on was one soggy page. I finally found most of the diary, but since I had the habit of writing in ink a lot of it was blurry and difficult to read. In the end it took weeks to try and work out which churches and schools I had appointments with across the whole Diocese, although I only missed two of them, after putting out a emergency message to everyone.

This incident made me realise how ephemeral plans can be - whether it's because we suddenly become ill, or our circumstances change, or as in my case lose my diary. Sometimes our carefully laid plans, about our life, or career, or retirement fall by the wayside, perhaps because we have left God out of them, and He has other plans. This is what the letter of James looks at today. Our life is so short, and anything can happen. So yes, we should make plans, but we should also remember that our lives belong to God and instead of making plans and then asking God, we should seek His blessing initially! (Memo to self - speak to God first!)

Heavenly Father,
let our plans be in accordance
with Your will,
and let us remember to involve
You at the beginning
and not at the end of our plans.
Help us to remember that we
are to be a blessing to others
whether our lives are long
or short-lived.
Amen.