Deo Volente

If it is the Lord’s will,
we will live and do this or that.
                  —James 4:15

“Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money” (James 4:13).

My friend Allen Isbell has noted six presumptions in that one sentence:

  1. He presumes that he will live to see tomorrow.
  2. He presumes that he will be able to travel tomorrow.
  3. He presumes that there will be a city that he will have access to tomorrow.
  4. He presumes that he will be able to establish a business in that city.
  5. He presumes that the business will be successful.
  6. He presumes that he will live another year.

Allen doesn’t disparage planning but warns of the danger of thinking that success is entirely the result of our own wisdom and work and that God has no hand in it. He advises a “Deo Volente” (God willing) P.S. to all our plans.

God won’t sign on as a junior partner.

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