If the Lord Wills

Observe. James addresses those who say, today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money. He reminds them that they do not know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead they ought to say, if it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that. As it is, they boast in their arrogant schemes, and all such boasting is evil. He ends with a general rule. If anyone knows the good they ought to do and does not do it, it is sin for them.

Interpret. James is not condemning planning. Merchants must plan, and Scripture elsewhere commends foresight. He is condemning planning that leaves God out, that assumes tomorrow is ours and that the future bends to our schedules. The phrase if the Lord wills is not a superstition to tack on. It is a posture, a recognition that every breath is on loan. The closing line about knowing the good and not doing it ties back to the whole letter. Hearing without doing, faith without deeds, knowing without acting, it is the same disease.

Apply. What plans have you made for the coming year that you have never once held up to God? Would your calendar look different if you genuinely believed you were a mist? And is there a good you know you ought to do this week that you have been quietly not doing?