“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. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.'” James 4:13-15
Stop for a moment and ask yourself what your plans for the future were exactly one year ago – on April 7, 2019.
One year ago from today, Patti, who was newly retired at the time, and I were thinking we might travel in Europe in 2020, or maybe go on a cruise (Ha!). We were looking forward to family meals together with our grown children (not to be). We had plans for our 401(k) (now down 20%). We bought a new car for road trips through the beautiful Rockies (forget that). And we certainly expected to enjoy going to movies and eating out every now and then (dream on).
What we didn’t know on April 7, 2019, is that we would be living in a different home by now and that Patti’s mother would be living with us. We also didn’t know that our daughter, Marietta, would be pregnant. All of these have been pleasant surprises.
But another surprise hasn’t been so pleasant. Who knew that a single bat in China could bring the entire world to its knees, crippling economies, closing borders, shuttering businesses, tanking stock markets, and isolating billions of people in their claustrophobic homes?
Someone has made the comment that it is as if God has told everyone on earth to go to their room.
It’s true that a good chunk of the world has God amnesia. When things are going well, it’s easy to forget that we are contingent beings, “a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.”
Wall Street and Main Street love stability and predictability. But that same stability and predictability upon which capitalism thrives numbs the mind to reality. God doesn’t like being left out of our plans. Or rather, it’s foolish to think that God isn’t in control…of everything. It is God’s will that we have to deal with, to acknowledge. We must make our plans in accordance with his.
So here we are, bored stiff and pouting in our rooms. Maybe it’s time to make amends with our Father who sent us here and start including him in our plans.
Marietta is due in October. Patti and I are hoping a vaccine for coranavirus will be out by then so that, if God wills, we’ll be able to hold the baby in our arms.
This post first appeared in NewCommandment.org.
Since 2003 New Commandment Men’s Ministries has helped hundreds of churches throughout North American and around the world recruit teams of men who permanently adopt their widowed and single parents in their congregations for the purpose of donating two hours of service to them one Saturday morning each month. We accomplish this with a free training site called New Commandment Men’s Ministry
Learn how to mobilize your men’s ministry to meet every pressing need in your church here.
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