Do you know that God cares about your business? Your business – be it in the workforce, entrepreneurial, serving your family, serving your country, or whatever your livelihood consists of – God is concerned with it!
There are many who are under the impression Christianity is mainly about going to church, stopping your daily life, worshipping, singing, and reading one’s Bible. Yes, these disciplines are important to God. But the same God, whom we worship on Sunday morning, is the God who created us with needs for food, shelter, and a livelihood. He knowingly created us as beings who need to work to live. Don’t you think he cares how we go about our work?
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. James 4:13-14a
James addresses Christian businessmen here, highlighting the pitfall of self-reliance in planning for the future. If you are not currently engaged in the workforce, it may be helpful to substitute the idea of making money with the following:
1) Making a name for yourself
2) Whatever means by which you receive livelihood
Do you rely on your own craftiness in planning for your ventures to succeed? Do you assume that you can plan for all of the factors outside your control?
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 4:14b-15
How often do you stop to remember this humbling reality? You only exist by the plan of God to bring you into existence. His graceful plan chose to create you! His graceful plan is concerned with how you conduct your business. If a Christian, you exist now as a part of God’s good plan to bear fruit here on earth.
This week I invite you to participate in a simple exercise. I, too, will put this exercise into practice! Let us see what God will do in us, through us, and for us if we begin the day by handing Him the pen to write our schedules. This is not a call to clear our calendar or cancel all appointments and wait for God to fill it in. However, it is a call to review our schedule at the beginning of the day – pause – and say very simply “If the Lord wills.” Then, if and when God speaks to you throughout the day, willingly submit to His plan.
