Ever have your plans disrupted and all your expectations blown to smithereens? I don’t know about you, but when someone says… “Life is but a Vapor”, I get a bit antsy. Since the New Year is looking at time and re-accessing how to use it best for another year…I don’t want to hear…” life is just “a puff of smoke”!
I’m busy lining up my plans, my priorities and my important, meaningful goals! I can remember my 101-year-old mother, sitting on the side of the bed saying, “How did I get here…it’s impossible…it went so fast!”
“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. 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.’” (James 4: 13-17)
Why did God call life a “vapor”? Does that mean I should not be making my own plans? Just relax and go with the proverbial “whatever will be, will be”! What should be my attitude regarding my plans? If I ask God’s blessing on MYplans, MY ways and MY will, I could be called a “practical atheist”!
Job lost his whole family. He loved them dearly. He sacrificed for them (to cover for any sin that they may have committed. (1:1-21). Job’s reply to God when all was lost: "The Lord gives and takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord. Job had other plans for his life and his family, I am sure, yet he responded with and lived in gratefulness.
Joseph was his father's heart. He was sold into slavery, then placed in jail on false pretenses for 13-17 years. Then he was placed second in command to the King in Egypt. There are no records of his complaining…ever! Joseph’s plans were altered when his brothers’ jealousy sold him into slavery, yet he lived content with God’s plan in gratefulness. (Gen 37-50)
Ruth was married and loved her husband and extended family. She lost all of them accept Naomi, her mother-in-law. They were left in utter poverty. With plans other than she envisioned and a grateful heart, Ruth became the great-grandmother of Jesus Christ. (Ruth 1-4)
OUR carnal planning, asking God to bless OUR will, is presumption on God.
Plans made without a real and genuine "Lord-willing".
Peter’s plan was clear when he swore his unyielding faithfulness to the Lord Jesus. Then denied knowing Him three times! We need to take note…have we denied Him in our silence?
Our calling is to live for HIS pleasure in HIS Plan in HIS will…not our own!
King David’s plan ordered his general to get a count of the army. His general said, “No”, but did it. That self-reliant plan cost the lives of 70,000 people in three days. David’s plan failed because he had HIS plan apart from God’s will. C. S. Lewis wrote, “There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, “All right, then, have it your way!’”
Life is just a Vapor…
What is done in HIS plan, HIS will and HIS purpose has eternal value.
Any plan apart from harmony with HIS will …will burn as wood, hay and stubble!
~Jackie Johnson - I am a former tribal missionary to the Kuna Indians on the Colombian border in Central America. Fluent in several languages, my husband and I currently pastor a Spanish-speaking church in Southern California. My passion is mentoring and equipping dedicated young women for life, marriage, motherhood, and beyond. I am the mother of two daughters and the grandmother of three Princesses and four young Knights.
