Monday, November 20, 2023

James 4:15 -- On Prioritizing the Lord's Will

"For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.
James 4:15


This seems like a good middle ground between taking no thought for the morrow (not stressing about the future), and being prepared and planning ahead, knowing that we have enough to complete the tower before we begin to build it, etc. It's planning with flexibility, because God might have other ideas, but he still asks us to move forward doing the best we can until he gives us a nudge in a different direction.

I think this is also what verse 10, earlier in the chapter is getting at, asking us to be humble so the Lord can lift us up. It isn't thinking that we are worms and waiting for God to give us detailed instructions on everything we need to do today, but knowing we are at least mostly competent servants, predicting what the Lord will needs, but being ready to turn on a dime if He wants something else... and that appropriate humility and deference to God will help us stay on God's path and help us someday learn to be better than servants or students or apprentices, and graduate to something better as we grow into our birthright as God's spiritual children.

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