Hi. It’s been a while. But that’s because I don’t like to write just to write. I wait for inspiration and one never knows where that might come from, or when. Yesterday my wife, humorously, told our son that I had my week planned out. She explained about our “Weekly Planner” on the refrigerator and that I had it filled with substitute teaching, tennis, and pickleball, something for each day of the week. She said, again humorously (I think), that she did not see herself on that list. Although she exaggerated just a little bit, she was not wrong.

Early this morning I went to one of my “Bible websites” to do a little reading. I saw an article titled “10 Key Bible Verses on Time” and decided to get into it. One verse was James 4:13-15:

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”—yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”

This verse brought my attention back to the “Weekly Planner” on our refrigerator door. I was reminded of a couple of things. First, any one of us can take verse 4:13, i.e., “today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”, and fill it with our own “to-do list,” like so: “this week I will go substitute teach a couple of days and play tennis and pickleball.” Well, that’s not all I will do, but you get the picture. Second, as the cliché goes, I am not getting any younger. Here is another key bible verse in the article: “The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty…” (Psalm 90:10-12). I am 63. Need I say more? “A mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes…” (James 4:14).

Without judging anyone, what’s on your “to-do list” (written or otherwise) this week? This month? This year? Whatever it is that you have on that list, please keep James 4:15 in your heart and mind: “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” I know I need that reminder from time to time.