James 4:13-17 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.” 14 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. 15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil. 17 Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.

Do you ever feel sorry for the weatherman? When you think about it he or she has an almost impossible job to perform: to predict what tomorrow and next week's weather will be! Sure, they have any number of gizmos and data sets to aid in their calculations: satellite radar, dew point, humidity, air pressure, and wind speed, but in the end, they put themselves and their word on the line by giving their personal, professional prediction of what the weather will be. Usually they're pretty close, sometimes they're way off, but that's the nature of tomorrow, isn’t it? We literally never know what it will bring.

Ever since Chapter 3 James has been going round and round with how dangerous and destructive our untamed tongues can be. Today he continues with that "tongue trouble" theme by pointing out yet another way that our words entrap us and cause us to sin: by boasting about tomorrow.

Now let's be real about how naturally we slip into this mode of speaking. In our everyday conversations we ask each other, "What are your plans for next week?" "Where’s your next vacation destination?" "What's the business forecast look like?" We may wonder, "Well, what's wrong with responding that I'll be going to the football game on Friday, or taking a Caribbean cruise in January, or that third quarter profits should be $1.2 million?" …The issue is not in our making plans for the future. Again and again the book of Proverbs praises those who make careful plans and wise use of their time and God-given resources. James says the problem is what our answers so often betray about the basis for our future success: ourselves and our own efforts.

Whenever we think that WE are going to make things happen, and WE'RE in control, God and his gracious rule and eternal glory are not only left in the dust, we not-so-subtly elevate ourselves and our power to god-like proportions. When we boast and brag about tomorrow and what we will do and accomplish, we are guilty of putting ourselves in God's place and ignoring our moment-by-moment dependence on him for life, breath, and everything else (cf. Acts 17:25). As King Solomon writes in Psalms 127, "Unless the LORD builds the house, its builders labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over a city, the watchmen stand guard in vain" (v. 1). Without God's will and blessing, all our big plans and efforts come to nothing because we have as much muscle and staying power in this world as the mist you breathe out on a cold January morning. Moreover, when we brag about the future, we are sinning by trespassing into God's domain by imagining we can effectively orchestrate the future and correctly predict what will happen (cf. Isaiah 41:26). In addition, we're puffing up our own egos relative to another over something that hasn't even happened yet! How insecure must we be to boast about what we suppose might happen? Only a fool would do such a thing! But such is what we are by nature!

Instead, the apostle exhorts us to cut out the boating and rest our plans entirely in God's hands, where all is truly and eternally secure and the best outcome is already guaranteed us through God’s almighty love in Jesus Christ (cf. Romans 8:28). The Lord assures us through Jeremiah, “I know the plans I have for you… plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (29:11). By God’s grace our final destination will be his glorious presence in heaven forever! In the meantime, rather than boast of ourselves and our big plans for ourselves, may God help us plan carefully, wisely, humbly, committing our projects to the Lord in prayer, and putting his kingdom first, and then give God free reign and all the glory to make of us and our future what he will.

James redirects us that as Christians we don’t need to be “tomorrow people,” but we can refocus our efforts on what is before us, what we can do right in the Lord today: “Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it, sins.” Let’s not get so future obsessed that we overlook the infinite opportunities to do good that are right under our noses now. Voicing predictions about tomorrow is probably best left to the weatherman. Let’s do the good God has set before us today.

Questions / Personal Reflection:

1.) What big plans are tempting you to lose sight of the good God would have you do today?

2.) How does God’s promise of heaven to come put all our earthly plans in a new perspective?

3.) Reflect on your own life. How have God’s plans for you compared with your own plans for yourself?

Prayer: Heavenly Father, you are the Lord of all my days. I trust and believe that my today and tomorrow are entirely in your loving, almighty hands. Forgive me for boasting about my big dreams and let me yield my future to your better, blessed plans for me. To you be all glory and praise! Amen.