If the Lord Wills: Planning Your Life in Humble Dependence on God

Jack Selcher
Sep 22, 2025
3 min read

Updated: Jan 27

A creek has risen and is surrounding a house built on its banks

Summary

James warns against planning life as if God were irrelevant. Human plans are fragile, life is brief, and the future is unknown. God calls believers to plan in humble dependence, acknowledging His sovereignty without empty clichés. Ignoring God in daily decisions is practical atheism. True obedience includes doing the good God reveals, especially loving others, which is always His will.

The Danger of Independent Planning

You don’t know how God’s will or unforeseen circumstances might modify your plans. Boasting about them is ridiculous. They are always tentative. The problem addressed in verse James 4:13 is that many Christians live as if God does not exist.

Life’s Uncertainty and God’s Sovereignty

James 4:13 illustrates independent planning that displeases God. He wants to be the Lord in every area of life. Spiritual people seek to know God’s will and recognize their dependence on God.

Practical Atheism in Daily Living

Are you a practical atheist with respect to work, recreation, social life, TV viewing, or income tax reporting? Do you try to fit God into your plans or continually adapt your plans to His? He has a plan to maximize our spiritual fruit.

Your plans for the future always have an asterisk because you do not know what tomorrow will bring. James 4:14 condemns every device to predict the future apart from God. The histories of those who attempt it prove, “You do not even know what will happen tomorrow” (James 4:14 NIV).

Life is like fog. It is short-lived. It is unpredictable. You cannot foresee the time or manner of your death. Planning your life as if you were independent is a foolish venture.

“If the Lord Wills”: A Posture, not a Catchphrase

James 4:15-17 describes your obligation to acknowledge God. "If it is the LORD's will, we will live and do this or that” (James 4:15 NIV).

Each day is a gift to use wisely. It could be your last. No machine can hold back your spirit when God summons it.

God’s Authority Over Our Careers and Futures

Your work also depends on God. Your plans are like eggshells. Unforeseen circumstances easily crush them.

I thought I would be an aquatic biologist my entire working career. Those plans were untracked after only 4.5 years. God had another idea. I subsequently planned to work in my denomination’s regional office until I retired. That didn’t happen either.

God overrides the plans of even the strongest, most fruitful Christians. You are not indispensable, no matter how spiritually fruitful you are. Dawson Trotman, the founder of the Navigators, drowned in a lake in New York at 50 amid a fruitful ministry.

You are like an infant tethered to God by an invisible umbilical cord that sustains your life and work. Every breath, every heartbeat is a gift from above.

Planning Without Presumption

James 4:15 doesn’t remove your responsibility to plan. It undercuts independent planning.

So, should you punctuate every plan with “If the Lord wills?” That can become a meaningless cliché.

The opposite extreme is to live as if God does not exist. Balance is essential. When stating his plans, Paul used “if God is willing” in Acts 18:21 and 1 Corinthians 4:19, 16:7. But he did not in Acts 19:12, Romans 15:24, or 1 Corinthians 16:5, 8.

Knowing the Good and Doing It

James 4:17 (NIV) states a conclusion: “If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn't do it, it is sin for them.” James 4:15 teaches it is right to include God in your plans.

The sinfulness of not doing what is right separates the sheep from the goats at the last judgment. (Matthew 25:31-46). God condemns loveless religiosity.