Pastor Joel shared the scripture passage below with us yesterday. I can’t get it out of my head and I continue to think about it.
James 4:14-17
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.
Pastor Joel is right. It is rather a harsh verse in some ways. I am no theologian, but I believe I have found some light amidst this seemingly unyielding upbraiding. Verse 15 speaks to me of the basics for us as Christians. If we say, “If it is the Lord’s will” then we might assume that we have taken the Lord as our God. Verse 17 seems to then say that if we know the good we ought to do we should get to doing it. But the wording is stark and harsh. If we honestly know God, we will be guided by the Holy Spirit within us and we will hopefully serve with joy and do the good that we know and are called to do.
But look at one big assumption that I have made. That we know our God. Perhaps the first thing we should do is make sure we do know God and affirm that we have invited Him into our lives in a wonderfully present and vibrant way first.
Yes, that sounds like a good first step. Remember gently, that at any given point we all may be at different places in our journey – some of us moving ahead, some of us a little off track, some of us totally disoriented and heading in the absolutely wrong direction and some of us just stuck. Don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll all change places on the journey over time.
These things happen to us. God knows – just find God first. He loves you and is a Father of infinite grace and infinite ideas for how each of us with our unique gifts, can best serve him by doing the good thing and making the good choice.
What is first always? Find God first. Then go out into the world for him. Lauren Daigle taught me this lesson in her beautiful but powerful song First. She sings of a precious and worshipful way to come before God that has, over the years of listening to it, reoriented my approach. See if it speaks to your heart today. First things first, right?
~Shauna Weil