Deo Volente
“Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit’ — yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For 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.’” (James 4:13-15)
I would like to once again wish you a Happy New Year! May the Lord guide your steps during this Year of 2020. There are many new opportunities and challenges ahead of us for this new year; but I am confident that the Lord is completely in charge of every single detail of our lives. Thus, it is proper to come to him and totally surrender our fears, our plans, our dreams into his powerful hand and expect that great things will happen to us all.
James, the brother of Jesus, was the pastor in charge of the church in Jerusalem. He wrote his letter to those members of the Church of Christ spread in the known world of the day, to the people of God living in the Roman Empire. The letter, which we will be studying until March, had a great deal of practical teaching for all the Christians in the Diaspora — Diaspora means “Dispersion” — and the Church is to be seen as the Body of Christ that is in a pilgrimage around the world until He returns in his glory and power. No matter how established we may be in any place on earth, we know that we do not belong to this world; rather, we are a diasporical people walking, expecting the fullness of the Kingdom of God and our eternal life in the presence of God. That will take place in the New Jerusalem, the new earth that has been promised to those who believe in Jesus Christ.
But while we are in this pilgrimage, we are allowed to make plans for our daily walk, even for the near and far future. The problem that James was addressing, according to the passage that I introduced above, is that there were many Christians who were arrogant and boastful, suggesting that they were in total control of their own future. James admonishes them by saying that they do not know what tomorrow will bring to them. Thus the question pops up: “What is your life?” He continues to explain that we are just like a mist which vanishes away in no time. Life is short and unpredictable. Only God knows what comes next in our lives, and this includes all our plans for the near and far days of our lives.
Instead of making our plans by our own visual calculations, James is quick in letting us know that we should depend completely upon God’s sovereign design for our lives. He puts it in such direct way, “Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.’” Surely this is enough to catch our perspective in our lives. It is common for many to say “Lord willing,” some would even use the Latin expression for that, “Deo Volente!” It is clear that God has his hand in our plans and we ought to recognize it in submission to his will. Without God in our lives, we are just blind sailors in the midst of a dangerous stormy journey. He always has the best for his children; thus we should expect the best from his plans for us.
I pray that 2020 will be a new walk for you and a time of great realizations under the unfailing guidance from the Holy Spirit in your life. May the Triune God pour his love and faithfulness upon you today.
Rev. Dr. Ehud M. Garcia