James 4:13-17 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”– (14) 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. (15) Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” (16) As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. (17) So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.
Life is a precious gift that should not be taken for granted. No one knows the amount of days we have been given from the Lord so we should intend to use them to their fullest. James is not saying in these verses that we are not to make plans, rather, we arrogantly assume we have been given enough days from the Lord to conduct personal business for a fixed amount of time without any regard to the One who has numbered our days. This kind of assumption is boasting and arrogance. He even calls it evil.
There are so many stories we have all experienced of friends or family who have passed on before they could fulfill their fullest potential. I had a friend several years back who died within a few months of being diagnosed with esophageal cancer. He was 25 and newly married. Another young man we knew crashed his car into a tree and died at the age of 19. The list goes on… Young men and women who make their plans, and before you know it they are gone. And this isn’t just about age.Whether we live to be 25 or 85, life is still a vapor in light of eternity. We are here for a time and like a mist we vanish. For the most part you will be forgotten. Solomon, in the book of Ecclesiastes, says that all we do under the sun is vanity. The worldly pursuit of power or fame, riches or possessions, relationships and family, are all vanity without them being from God. Think about it… Can you remember your great grandfathers name? How about your great-great grandfather? Just a few generations ago and we simply have no idea who they were and what they did.
Life is a vapor. As children of God there is a call on our life to serve Christ. We are given a few short years to do that, but when we don’t, it is sin. We often know the right thing to do but instead we do whatever we desire instead. Verse 17 isn’t necessarily talking about a specific “doing” of a certain act. Like, I know it is right thing to use the crosswalk, so if I don’t it is sin. Rather, James is saying that our duty as Christians is to recognize that all I am able to do I do under the direction and leading of God. He knows the number of my days and whether or not I am going to prosper in those days, so “Lord willing” I will move forward doing the right thing. Regardless if a “thing” is good or not, doing it with expectation and arrogance will always make it the wrong thing.
God has given each one of us a certain amount of time to live out on this earth. How we spend our time is important and truly reflects whether we are going walk in arrogance and boasting or whether we are going to walk understanding that the Lord wills whether we will even be here another hour to serve him whole-heartily.
Prayer
Lord, thank you for giving me another breath today. For allowing me to love my family, to work and be productive, and to serve you and worship you in all I do. Help me to do the right thing today. Help me to focus my heart and mind on you and what you would have for me. Take away any distraction that keeps me from serving you. Amen