James–Part 21
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that town and stay there a year, doing business and making money.” You do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? 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.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do and doesn’t do it, sins.
James 4:13-17
Psychics, astrologers, palm readers, and others claim to have the ability to see what lies ahead, but the Bible categorically condemns such practices. Does that mean God does not want us to plan for the future? Of course not. The Scriptures encourage us to make plans, but there is a right way and a wrong way to do that. Sadly, most of us choose the wrong way to plan.
The fourth chapter of James tells us how to face the future in a God-honoring way, and uses a hypothetical business discussion to make the point. Imagine yourself seated at a cafe in downtown Jerusalem and overhearing a conversation at the next table between two business partners. One says to the other, “Today or tomorrow we will go to a certain town and stay there a year, doing business and making money.”