How To Plan Ahead Series

Please turn to Luke 12

Allowing for no contingencies, they planned as if they were omniscient, omnipotent, and invulnerable. In Luke 12:16–21 the Lord Jesus Christ told a parable illustrating the folly of presumptuously leaving God out of one’s planning:

Luke 12:16-21 [16]And he told them a parable, saying, "The land of a rich man produced plentifully, [17]and he thought to himself, 'What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?' [18]And he said, 'I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. [19]And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.' [20]But God said to him, 'Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?' [21]So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God." (ESV)

In James 4:14, James gives two important reasons those who presumptuously leave God out of their planning are foolish. First, James says to such people, You do not know what tomorrow will bring/what your life will be like tomorrow. Like the rich fool in our Lord’s parable in Luke 12, they were ignorant of the future. In Psalm 37:3-5, David wrote, [3] Trust in the LORD, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. [4] Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart. [5]Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and he will act. (ESV). Likeise in Proverbs 3:5-6, in probably an even more famous passage from a similar vein, Solomon wrote, [5] Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. [6] In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. (ESV). Therefore, bringing us back to James 4:14, what James urges is not a morbid preoccupation with possible disaster, but a realistic attitude to the future made possible by faith in God.… Realizing the immediate future (from our perception) is uncertain not only teaches us trust in God, it helps us properly to value the present. To be obsessed with future plans may mark our failure to appreciate present blessings or our evasion of present duties (Adamson, J. B. (1976). The Epistle of James (p. 180). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.)

James here gives another reason that leaving God out of one’s planning is foolish: the brevity of life. You are a mist/just a vapor that appears for a little time/while, James reminded them, and then vanishes (away). Life is as transitory as a puff of smoke from a fire; the steam that rises from a cup of coffee; or one’s breath, briefly visible on a cold day. How foolish, in light of the brevity and frailty of earthly life, to plan and live it without consideration for God’s will. The Bible repeatedly stresses the shortness of human life. Job, possibly the first book of Scripture to be written, says much about life’s ephemeral nature. In Job 7:6 Job lamented, “My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and come to an end without hope,” while in Job 7:9 he added, “When a cloud vanishes, it is gone, so he who goes down to Sheol [the abode of the dead] does not come up.” “We are only of yesterday and know nothing,” said Job’s friend Bildad the Shuhite, “because our days on earth are as a shadow” (Job 8:9). Continuing his lament, Job said, “Now my days are swifter than a runner; they flee away, they see no good. They slip by like reed boats, like an eagle that swoops on its prey” (Job 9:25–26). Job’s complaint to God in Job 14:1–2 aptly summarizes the frailty and brevity of human existence: “Man, who is born of woman, is short-lived and full of turmoil. Like a flower he comes forth and withers. He also flees like a shadow and does not remain.”The Psalms also stress the transitory nature of human life. “As for the days of our life, they contain seventy years,” wrote Moses, “or if due to strength, eighty years, yet their pride is but labor and sorrow; for soon it is gone and we fly away” (Ps. 90:10). “My days are like a lengthened shadow,” the psalmist mourned, “and I wither away like grass” (Ps. 102:11). Summing up the Bible’s teaching on the brevity of human life, David wrote, “As for man, his days are like grass; as a flower of the field, so he flourishes. When the wind has passed over it, it is no more, and its place acknowledges it no longer” (Ps. 103:15–16; cf. Isa. 40:6–8; 1 Pet. 1:24). To James's audience, their ignorance of the future and the frailty and brevity of human life should give pause to those who foolishly ignore God’s will. James would impress upon us this critical piece of knowledge: that God is the one who sustains our lives, that each day’s twenty-four hours are not “ours” automatically, that God controls time and gives it as one of his good gifts, and that we would be already blown away in God’s judgment were it not for his mercy. The biblical worldview is that “we receive another day neither by natural necessity, nor by mechanical law, nor by right, nor by courtesy of nature, but only by the covenanted mercies of God” (Motyer 1985:162). This knowledge helps to dispel self-sufficiency, replacing it with the freedom to rely on God’s faithful generosity. Again, far from preaching self-reliance and works-orientation, James is leading us into a life of grace-reliance (Stulac, G. M. (1993). James. The IVP New Testament commentary series. Downers Grove, Ill. USA: InterVarsity Press.).