Our Will and God’s Will

Scripture Reading: James 4:13-17, Proverbs 27:1, Matthew 6:25-34, 1 Corinthians 5:6-8

After the Russian dissident and writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn was expelled from the Soviet Union in 1974, he lived in the West for many years. When he was awarded the Templeton Prize in 1983, he began his acceptance speech, “More than half a century ago, while still a child, I heard several older people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: ‘Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.’”

He spoke about how this had happened in his own homeland, but he did not stop there. He was speaking to Westerners who could easily convince themselves that they had it better. Disaster had not befallen them, and they had not forgotten God; after all, they were quite free to talk about Him. But in his address, Solzhenitsyn insisted that this forgetting God could happen, and was happening, to them as well.

How is this possible? How can we be free to talk about and worship God and yet order our lives in such a way that God is not necessary? This is the situation James told his readers about: “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will travel to such and such a city…’” (James 4:13). He used the example of traveling and conducting business, but this can happen anytime we plan our futures without regard to God. We can convince ourselves that we know what is best when it comes to education, money, retirement, or relationships and not recognize that we are dependent on God at every moment of our existence. This is our normal way of doing things; when we get together with our friends, it is simply how we talk. But like the roaring dissident Solzhenitsyn who stood up and told Westerners that they, too, had forgotten God, James stood up and said, “You boast in your arrogance” (v.16). This might be the normal way of going about things, but it is not good.

What’s so bad about making plans? The issue is not so much with thinking about the future as it is with assuming God’s place as our own in the universe. God is all-knowing and all-powerful, and we are not. If we adopt these attributes for ourselves, we take on a burden we were not meant to bear. We try to control outcomes as if we know what’s best. For a few moments at a time, our bids for control appear to work, and we become proud. But in the long run, control always eludes our grasp, and we end up mired in worry, fear, and bitterness.

The good news is that God is gracious and good, and He has not asked us to bear the burden of controlling every aspect of our lives. We may forget Him, but He has not forgotten us. As many times as we have run away like the prodigal son who thought he knew how his life should go, our loving Father waits for us to remember Him and return so He can lift from us those burdens we were never meant to carry.

Written by Elliot Ritzema