instead, we should...

ok, james now gets away from the brash announcements we make about our future to what we are suppose to say, instead. james 4.15 (ms), instead, make it a habit to say, "if the MASTER wills it and we're still alive, we'll do this or that."

instead, make it a habit to say. it is not something you do just on sunday or maybe just during lent or advent but all the time. it is a habit that we need to get into.

now there are some habits in life that we need to break. this week i have been having a banana at starbucks instead of my plain stick donut and vanilla cream filled donut at dunkin donut. of course i have said that i went to dunkin for the coffee but in reality it was for the donuts and i had to quit going to dunking to break my sugar habit which was not good for me.

as you know, we live with a lot of habits in what we say that we need to break. on twitter this morning a person i follow said, "positive thinking will let you do everything better than negative thinking will" and i responded by saying, "so true as will faith."

i do everything i can to keep from saying anything negative. being negative, responding negatively, reacting negatively is a habit that needs to be broken.

there are some habits that need to be broken but james says, make it a habit to say, "if the MASTER wills it." the niv says it this way, if it is the LORD's will. we use the word LORD more than MASTER but of course they both refer to GOD.

some might say, but couldn't that be a cliché? and of course it could be. you could trivialize it but he's not saying that. he's saying that the whole attitude of our life should be "it's up to GOD. whatever HE wants me to do is what i want." it's just a good reminder.

followers of CHRIST for hundreds of years used to write the initials d. v. at the end of their letters. they'd sign their name and then write d. v.. and d. v. stood for the latin phrase, "deo valente" – "LORD willing". james says that ought to be our response to life. it's ok to plan but include GOD in your plans. make it a habit to say, if the MASTER wills it.

just some thoughts from my front porch...