James 4:13-17 – “What to Do?”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹³Come now, ones saying, “We will go today or tomorrow into this city and spend one year there and trade and make a profit.”¹⁴Whoever, you do not know the matter of tomorrow. What [is] your life? For it is a vapor which appears toward a little and then vanishes. ¹⁵Instead of this, you [ought] to say, “If the Lord desires, we will also live and do this or that.” ¹⁶But now you are boasting in your presumptuousness. All such boasting is evil. ¹⁷Therefore, it is sin to one knowing to do good and not doing [it].

Somewhere, I ran across the following quote which I believe expresses some important truths arising out of a study of this passage in James:

Within Divine control, life is within human control and this is the precise attitude and relation in which the Christian stands. The Divine control he is fully assured of, and in it he greatly rejoices. But it in no way interferes with his sense of personal responsibility, with his energy and enterprise. He plans, as other men plan; he looks forward, as other men look forward; he works toward an aim, as other men work toward an aim. But there is a cherished mood of humility, submission, and dependence in him of which the godless man knows nothing. When that mood finds expression in words, it says, ‘If the Lord will, we shall both live and do this or that.” What is wrong is:

(1)   the vauntings of self-confidence, as if we had full control of our lives, which we have not; and, on the other hand,

(2) the fatalism—whatever pietistic form it may take—which leads us to think or to say we have no control of our lives, and therefore it is of no use to plan, or to anticipate and provide for the future. True religion ennobles a man's manliness—it never enfeebles or crushes it. In everything that is manly the Christian’s sense of God should make him more manly. And it is manly and Christian to grip life with a strong hand. Life is entrusted to us that we may spend it in working out God’s plan, through working out our own; and “man is immortal till his work is done.” Find out the plan of God in your generation, and then beware lest you cross that plan, or fail to find your own place in it.

Our work is but a segment in the great sphere of God's eternal work; and if we have eyes to see, we may read, in that portion of His work which belongs to us, our name and the date of the present year.

I don’t know where I ran across the quote, and a Google search surprisingly doesn’t turn up its source. Regardless, I think the author does a good job striking the balance between the wrongful planning which is in the end practical atheism, and proper planning which is simply being responsible as we live our lives under the greatness of God.

I’m not sure yet I’ve “got it.” I feel like I do realize life is short and fragile. I feel like I do see it all as part of God’s will. But what bothers me is that the whole world thinks they’ve “got it” and yet, we obviously don’t. Am I actually an exception to the rule or just another self-deluded participant? If I say, “I’ve got it,” then, as in verse 17, I’m saying “I know the good I ought to do.” That leaves me especially accountable to answer the question, “Am I living up to the knowledge I have?” If my pride is blinding me to the sin of presumptuousness, I certainly need the Lord to open my eyes.

I guess for now, I’m just going to have to beg Him in prayer to that end and then go on. I only know to sincerely try to fill my life with love every day. I am convinced the path of love is the path of God’s will for my life. May He light the way and help me to fill my short vapor life with as much love as He will enable me to accomplish.

One thing that has perplexed me for years is this fact that we don’t know how long we’ll live. At 58, realistically I’ve probably got about 20 years to live. Then I’d be 78. 20 years is not really very long at all. On the other hand, I might live to be 98 and that would be 40 years – which seems like another lifetime. Gads, 40 years ago I was 18! On the other hand, I may die today. If I was assured I’d live to 98 (and I had the money), perhaps I could go back to school, get a degree in Celtic history and embark on a completely new career teaching history. But then again I might not live till tomorrow! So what do I do today?

As alluring as a whole different career might be (which I can’t afford anyway), it makes sense to me what Paul told the Corinthians: “Each one should retain the place in life that the Lord assigned to him and to which God has called him … Each man, as responsible to God, should remain in the situation God called him to” (I Cor 7:17-24). I think what this verse would say is that, in general, we all should just keep doing whatever it is we do and let the Lord decide how long we’ll do it.

… which always brings me back to the same point – just keep doing what I do, use it as my opportunity to love the people it brings me in contact with – and keep doing it the best I can, whether I die today or live to be 98.

If I’m missing something, I sure hope the Lord will open my eyes to see it. Otherwise, this is the path I’ll take – if the Lord will(!).

Speaking of “if the Lord will,” since I’m at the end of chapter 4, I think I’ll take a break from James and go back and do some OT study for a while. If the Lord wills, I’ll live to come back and finish my study of this book of James. It sure has been fun!

James 4:13-17 – “Presumptuousness”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹³Come now, ones saying, “We will go today or tomorrow into this city and spend one year there and trade and make a profit.”¹⁴Whoever, you do not know the matter of tomorrow. What [is] your life? For it is a vapor which appears toward a little and then vanishes. ¹⁵Instead of this, you [ought] to say, “If the Lord desires, we will also live and do this or that.” ¹⁶But now you are boasting in your presumptuousness. All such boasting is evil. ¹⁷Therefore, it is sin to one knowing to do good and not doing [it].

I have often bemoaned that pride is a self-concealing sin, that, although it is a monstrous sin, the sin of the devil himself, yet we are utterly blind to it until the Lord opens our eyes so we can repent of it. I believe that in the present passage James is trying to do exactly this for us. He is trying to open our eyes to another expression of our evil pride and one which few ever recognize. I’ve certainly never seen this before. He would speak to us of the sin of presumptuousness.

Presumptuousness. “I’m going here and doing this and that, and then I’ll go there and do such and such and stay there for this long and then I’ll …”

James says, “Really?” When we’re talking (and thinking) like this we are forgetting two grand truths of our very existence: 1) We know absolutely nothing beyond this present moment, and 2) our life is more frail than tissue paper.

When we’re talking and thinking like this, we ought to hear in our hearts those terrible words, “Thou fool! Tonight shall thy soul be required of thee!” (Luke 12:20). Proverbs warns us, “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth” (27:1).

As I have been studying this for a couple of weeks, I realize I’ve never really thought deeply about it. In this world, God has granted us knowledge of the past and the present but not the future. We may know much from not only our own past but of the very world itself. We are allowed to know where we are at this very moment, what we are doing, what others are doing around us. But there is an absolutely impassable wall between us and even the very next second of our lives. We know with certainty nothing of our future, neither immediate nor yet to come. “The future” is a realm to which we are allowed absolutely no certain access. It is of grand significance, this “future” of ours, yet we have been utterly denied access to it. God alone holds that future. He alone knows that future and He alone will decide what it holds. He alone knows “the end from the beginning” and He alone “inhabits eternity.”

This is precisely the point where I believe James would reveal to us a very, very subtle and utterly unrecognized expression of our sinful pride – the refusal to accept this station to which the Lord has assigned us, to be people of the past and present, while God alone  entirely possesses the future.  Presumptuousness. Refusing to accept that “our times are in His hands” (Ps 31:15).  Practical atheism.

Is not this sin at the root of worry? Is worry not, in reality, trespassing across this line between the present (our proper domain) and the future (for us a “Forbidden Zone”)? Is worry not clamoring against this limit God has given us? Is it not a restless refusal to accept that God has withheld from us any certain knowledge of or control over our future? Is it not an evil presumptuousness to paint in our minds what the future holds, to paint it as if we have the power to create it, to control it? The future is rightly God’s realm, not mine. He has assigned that I should live in the present.

Now, as far as the future, there certainly is a good and proper activity of planning and preparation. “A wise man sees danger and takes refuge.” “Go to the ant, you sluggard. He gathers now to supply his needs later.” “What man among you, building a tower, does not first of all sit down and make sure he has what he needs to finish it?” One could even say there is a sense in which people do control their future. The Great Mandate was “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over it” (Gen 1:28). We are to “take charge” of our future and work it out toward the ends which God desires. On the other hand, we are quite capable of “messing up” our lives and incurring consequences we’ll bear to our graves. But all of these things are activities (good or bad) we undertake in the present. When it comes down to it, no matter how much we “prepare” we have to remember “A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord orders His steps” (Prov 16:9). Joseph’s brothers “meant it for evil” but the Lord worked it out for good “to the saving of many lives.”

So I guess that is my point. Although we certainly can make choices which theoretically will incur good or bad consequences in the future – and we actually should make good choices to that end – yet all those activities must be undertaken in the present, because there is always that great impregnable wall, that utterly impassable barrier, that I have no knowledge or control even one second into my future.

“We will go today or tomorrow into this city and spend one year there and trade and make a profit.”

Yeah, right.

No wonder God calls it boasting. It must be profoundly ridiculous to Him to hear us puffing and blowing about whatever it is we think we’re going to do, completely without any recognition of Him or the fact that our very breath is in His hand! No wonder He says, “All such boasting is evil.”

The cure for our presumptuousness, says James, is to live in the constant awareness of God’s presence and total control. “If the Lord will, we will do this or that.” All we need to do is add this element of humility to our planning and it immediately becomes something we rightly do. This element of humility saves us from our evil inclination toward a presumptuousness that God condemns. I would suggest it is simply a matter of clearly recognizing that wall between my present and even one second into my future. The present is mine in which to live under God. The present is mine to make choices which, under God, I believe will bear good fruit in my future; but that future is totally God’s domain. I possess no control over it and in fact have no certainty whatsoever I’ll even live to see it.

One scary thought, though. Someone I was reading pointed out that this statement, “Life is a vapor” is perhaps one of the most common clichés known to man. Even the ancient Greek writers acknowledged it. Yet, who anywhere honestly lets it have any effect on their life? It’s one of things we’re all quite sure “we know” and yet we spend no thought on it and go on living like it isn’t true. I suspect that is precisely why James ends with the familiar maxim, “If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn't do it, to them it is sin.” In other words don’t be saying, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that.” The question is, do you live like you know it?

I’m probably a case in point. I feel like I’ve “known” this my whole adult life and yet here I am pondering the subject like it’s never crossed my mind before. Like all the faces of the sin of pride, presumptuousness obviously hides itself in our hearts. It needs to be drug kicking and screaming out into the light where we can see it for the evil it really is and, in so doing, put it to death.

Definitely something I need to ponder, particularly as today is my 58^th birthday! I’m on the “other” end of life. Somewhere I passed that point where I no longer have to ponder that life is short. The reality of that thought now hovers over me. Yet, having said all that I’m still not sure I “get it.”

Will ponder more, as I go about my day (– if the Lord will!).