Purpose presumption

The second way we move from providence to presumption is by forgetting what we are. I call this purpose presumption. "What is your life?" James asks, for you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Before it was the content of tomorrow that is unknown, now James says that it is the very existence of tomorrow that is unknown.

James says three things in a row about this kind of presumption:

1. We're insubstantial, just a mist. We can be seen through.
2. We are transient. We are here for just a little time. The early morning mist burns off quickly.
3. We are gone without a trace. We vanish.

If you say this sounds pessimistic or even fatalistic, it is not. It is biblical realism. This is what is actually true about our lives. The longer we live, the more that we see it is so. Realism is not being self-sufficient; realism is being dependent.

Position presumption

Third, we forget our position in relationship to God — we forget our dependence. Verse 15 says: "Instead you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that'." Years ago Christians would often say "Lord willing," or "If God wills then I will do thus and so." It's a very interesting little phrase. Sometimes in the olden days, people would punctuate their letters with the initials, d.v., which stands for the Latin divinitas volunteras, which means "If God wills, then I will do this or that." There is always the possibility that this could become a kind of pious Christian prattle, so we must guard against saying something just to sound spiritual.

John Calvin had more robust views on this kind of presumption (as in fact he had in many things!). He said, "We read everywhere in Scriptures that the holy servants of God spoke unconditionally of future things." They did not say, "If God wills, we do thus and so." But then Calvin goes on to say, "But they had as a fixed principle in their minds, that they could do nothing without the permission of God." They didn't need to say it all the time, because they really deeply believed it. I wonder if we always really believe we can do nothing without the permission of God as we speak of our plans.

People who live by the fixed principle of God's providence all their days are not presumptuous. They don't forget how quickly life changes, that we are just a mist and how dependent we are. They live every day deliberately by the permission of God. It is a deliberate act of the mind and will to live every day by the permission of God.

This is a hard thing for some of us, maybe particularly for men, because some of us think it is weakness to release apparent control of our own lives and see even our hours and minutes belonging to God. But it is not a matter of weakness, it's a matter of seeing where our true strength lies.