Lord Willin’ and the Creek Don’t Rise
James 4:13-17 (NIV) 13 Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” 14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. 17 If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.
Boy, this one always hits home with me. I am a planner. I make lists and try to check off things I have done, and hopefully, will not miss anything important. But how many times have I jumped ahead of God and how many times have I pledged to wait, yet my impatience gets the best of me?
I pray my plans do not rise to the level of boasting but instead are just a mark of good stewardship. And I pray I will never again become so self involved that I fail to ask God’s will for my life and that I listen with my whole when He speaks.
Growing up in the South I heard a lot of colloquialisms that were based on common sense and a recognition of who God is. Plans were often finalized with the phrase “Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise.”
May we be so tuned in to God that He is the first thought as we start our days and the last thought as we end our nights. And may we remember as the psalmist said that God is the keeper of our days.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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- Tagged: Faith, humility, Seeking Holiness, trust
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