"Look here, you who say today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year. How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog, it is here for a little while and then it is gone. What you ought to say is, IF THE LORD IS WILLING, we will do this or that."
Have you planned out your whole life? Do you know who you will marry, how many children you will have and the year of your death? Are you certain of what kind of job or profession you will enter? Have you decided what kind of home you will have and where it will be located? Have you planned for a trip or vacation taken on a regular basis. You may have plans or goals for your life or future but they are just that, a plan. Whenever you talk about the future you had better include the One Truth Today. You had better include the fact that whatever your desire, it will only become a reality, IF THE LORD IS WILLING!
Only God knows the end from the beginning. No man knows what will happen tomorrow. How many times have you been surprised by the events that dramatically changed your own life? If you look back you will see and be certain that you are not in control of your world. Life is like a vapor or fog, a puff of smoke that is visible for a time and then disappears in to thin air. In God's timing we are here for only an instant. Life, fame and fortune are fleeting, here for a little while and then gone. You may control your thoughts and actions one at time, while you are alive, but you certainly do not control your universe and what happens in it. Better that you do not say with certainty that you will do this or that, because you do not control destiny!
What we ought to say about tomorrow or any future plan is that I will do this or that thing only
IF THE LORD IS WILLING! This is a simple and necessary acknowledgement that God is control of this world and everything in it. Our plans will succeed only if they are in concert or within the will of God. Not my will, is what will occur, but His will is what will be done. That is why no one can truly predict the future. We may attempt at rationalization based on prior facts, but that is not knowledge and forethought, it is a guess at what God will do. It is presumptuous and conceited to boast about what our future will be when in fact we do not control it. So when you are making future plans be sure to always say, IF THE LORD IS WILLING OR GOD WILLING!
