Sharpened Together - Week 16

Key Scripture: 
James 4: 13-16
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.” As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil.

As a guy, I love a good plan. That moment in the movie where they pull out the blueprints and plot their way to save their comrades is almost as good as watching the plan unfold in action.

I'm pretty good at making plans too. So good that I made a career out of drawing masterplans for cities and developments. I also make plans in other areas: personal and professional goals, quarterly targets, annual reviews. You should see the wall in my office.

But here's what I'm learning. This year hasn't gone the way I planned. My expectations haven't been met, and my goals seem to be slipping further away.

And it's revealing something uncomfortable in me.

The book of James has never felt more relevant, because it names what I've been doing: confidently announcing my plans as if I control their outcome. Not just thinking them. Announcing them. Publicly. With certainty. As if my effort guarantees my success.

In chapter 4:13, James cautions against this kind of confidence. Notice he doesn't say, "Don't make plans." The Bible actually encourages planning (Proverbs 16:9: "The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps"). The sin isn't planning. It's the arrogance of assuming we determine what comes next.

There's a gap between planning and control, and I live in that gap professionally every day. I can draw the masterplan beautifully. I can present it with conviction. But I cannot make a client choose it. I cannot control the market. I cannot guarantee the outcome.

This is where humility enters. Not the humility of not having ambition or vision. But the humility of recognising that we propose, God disposes. Our role is to plan wisely, work diligently, and then crucially, hand it over.

This matters especially for those of us in leadership. The people around us, our teams at work, our families, they're watching how we handle uncertainty. When we announce our plans as certainties, we model false confidence. When we announce them as hopes submitted to God's will, we model faith. We give them permission to release their grip too.

This is countercultural.

Our economy runs on the promise that enough planning, enough data, enough hustle will guarantee results. Our culture celebrates the bold vision stated with absolute certainty.

But Jesus didn't teach that.

James doesn't teach that.

What he teaches is this: make your plans. Make them well. But hold them lightly. Caveat them with "God willing." Pray over them. And be genuinely open to God saying no, or saying something better than what you imagined.

So ask yourself:
- What plans have I announced with too much certainty this year?
- Where am I  gripping control instead of entrusting it to God?
- As a leader at work, at home, in your community, how could I model humble submission to God's will instead of false confidence in my own?