(Text and Audio)
Title: Best Laid Plans and our New Year’s Resolutions
What’s Good about New Year’s Resolutions? What’s Bad?
(Read/Pray)
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”—yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring…Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that…
Much to my wife’s chagrin, I am a chronically specific person. I have found that if I am too specific when it comes to making New Year’s resolutions, I can paint myself in a corner, and set myself up for failure.
For example, a few years ago, I resolved to save “X” amount of money that coming year into savings. That same year we welcomed our first child. Needless to say, I fell woefully short in my attempt to save “X” amount of money. (Children have a way of derailing financial plans, I have found.)
Is James’s issue here with people making plans?
Then what, exactly is his issue?
Presumption.
This is where I find comfort in the words of James above: It is okay, natural, and good for a man to have a plan…but our faith is often truly illustrated in how humble we are when God changes those plans.
It is okay to aspire toward resolutions…as long as you acknowledge that the God that knows infinitely more about what is truly good for you, may have another pathway in mind. This pathway is often very difficult, and it is so for the purpose of teaching us lessons we could not otherwise learn.
This is more than a polite pre-cursor.
So James offers us much wisdom in how we should slightly adjust our resolutions. “If the Lord wills” is more than a polite precursor to a prayer request. It is an acknowledgement the HE is in control, not us. We don’t know the outcome, but we trust in HE who does.
In addition to my pastoral post, I’ve had the privilege to serve this community as a chaplain for Hospice of North Central Ohio for the last 16 years. I often ask patients whom I visit, “How can I pray for you today?” And the response from the patient is often, “That I can get better!” Which makes sense, but can present a difficult counseling situation for someone facing a terminal illness.
I have discovered a great response to this.
I will respond, “I can absolutely pray for that…but let me ask you a question: What if it is not God’s will for you to get better? What if He is calling you home? What would that do to your relationship with God?”
It is in our answers to these questions where our faith is truly defined.