Marsha's Musings: Leaving God Out of the Details (James 4:13-16 KJV)

Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that. But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil. (James 4:13-16 KJV)

The older I get the more I realize that we don't know what tomorrow will bring. We don't even know what the next minute will bring!  And yet we make our plans and boast about what we will do. I used to think those who used the phrase, "Lord willing" after something they said they planned to do were just trying to sound extra spiritual.  Maybe they were just being Biblical.

You know what really hurts about this passage is the fact that it says all such rejoicing (about our plans) is evil!   Evil?!  That's right, it says it is evil. I never thought of it this way.  How could it be evil?

It is evil in that it leaves God out of the details. It is evil in that God's sovereignty over all things is not taken into consideration.  I've read this passage before but never saw it in this light.