"If The Lord Will"

December 29th, 2010

Come 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 make a profit: 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. - James 4:13-15

All too often we tend to take our lives here on earth for granted. We make all these plans for our futures, assuming we'll be able to complete them. We believe that we have everything totally "planned out" when we truly don't. We don't know what the next day holds for us, let alone the next hour, or minute, or even the next second! Only God knows.

The above verses came to my mind Monday night on our way home from the hospital. My siblings, dad, some friends of ours and I had met at the ice rink to skate, and we had just started skating when a few of us decided to do a "train." Something happened to where I lost my balance. All I remember was that I was starting to slide under my brother as I fell backward, and feeling my hands slip down his sides as I tried to catch myself. After that, everything went black. When I woke up, my head was throbbing, I was strapped down on a backboard and stretcher with a few EMTs around me, and my dad (whom I could only hear, not see) was off to the side.

To make a somewhat long story short, I was taken to the local hospital, had a few scans done, and later was released after everything came back clear. I had had a pretty major concussion, but nothing was fractured or broken, praise God! But, as we headed home, James 4:13-15 echoed in my mind -- mainly verse fifteen: "For ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this or that."

Earlier that day I had made all these plans for things I wanted to do on Tuesday. For one, I was putting off a much-needed shopping trip until that day. I had also decided that I'd get my hair cut then, and there were other things that I had planned on doing too for fun. I had assumed that I'd be able to do all this. Instead of assuming as I had, my mindset really should have been like the one described in verse fifteen of James chapter four.

God knows what the future holds for each of us, even if we don't. He has a marvelous, spectacular, and awesome plan for His children (Jeremiah 29:11) and will always be with us no matter what (Hebrews 13:5b). May all of us always carry the mindset of, "If the Lord will," in whatever we do!