Plans in Pencil

James 4:13–15: “Now listen, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.’ 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. Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.’”

How does your plan for 2027 sit with you?

October is planning season. Budgets are being drafted and the plans are being made for 2027.

These words in James are written directly to business people. The Greek verb ἐμπορεύομαι (emporeuomai) means to trade, to travel for business, to make gain. It shares a root with our word emporium. James is not writing to priests or prophets here. He is writing to traders with a destination and a timeline.

Notice what James does not say. He does not say stop planning. He does not say planning is unspiritual. He does not tell them to stay at home and wait. Scripture is full of good planning. Joseph stored grain through seven years of plenty to carry Egypt through seven years of famine (Genesis 41). Jesus speaks of the builder who first sits down and counts the cost (Luke 14:28).

The problem is not the plan, however, it is the posture behind it.

Every phrase in verse 13 is certain. Today or tomorrow. This city. A year there. Make money. There is no room left for God. The plan has quietly become the thing holding the future.

James reminds them, and us, how little of that future we actually hold. “You are but a mist.”

In other words: plan, but plan as people who know who holds tomorrow.

Proverbs 16:3 puts it this way: “Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans.”

So as we sit down to plan this autumn, this passage asks some uncomfortable questions:

• Which part of my plan am I trusting more than God?

• Where is confidence masquerading as wisdom?

• Have I prayed over this plan, or just presented it?

Plan well. Plan with everything God has given you. But hold it with open hands.

Write it in pencil.

- Jack Taylor