Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit”; whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.” But now you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. – James 4:13-16
I was looking forward to visiting my sister in the Greater Toronto Area in March this year. I had my flights and hotel booked. I was also excited to visit the Dominican Republic this month with my husband for the first time. My travel agent has booked the resort and I have booked our flights. The resort stay was a good deal. Of course, I had to cancel both trips after the coronavirus pandemic triggered a travel mayhem worldwide. I have a few more trips booked in the summer and in the fall this year, but I am playing it by ear.
My travel interruptions and all kinds of interruptions in our lives caused by this unprecedented pandemic are humbling experiences. Coronavirus has taught us that we are not in control of our lives. The verses in James give us a sober reminder that we should always commit our plans to God and be open to any changes that He may bring. We should always view our agenda as temporary. We should always say to ourselves that we will only do this or that if the Lord wills.
Committing our plans to the Lord is an acknowledgement of God’s sovereignty in our lives. Proverbs 19:21 reads: “Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.” Thomas à Kempis in his classic book – The Imitation of Christ, writes: “For the resolutions of the just depend rather on the grace of God than on their own wisdom; and in Him they always put their trust, whatever they take in hand. For man proposes, but God disposes; neither is the way of man in his own hands”.
God is not only sovereign in each of our lives but in all world occurrences. This vicious virus is also God’s way of showing the frailty of human successes in managing the world. “There is something bitterly apt in the fact that coronaviruses take their name from the Latin corona, a crown. Their form is that of the traditional human symbol of dominion and domination. They come to tell us that they are as much kings of the world as we are. We are not enslaved to nature anymore – but we are not its masters either… It took us millenniums to acquire the pride of conquerors. We have only a few decades to learn the humility of survivors,” says Irish Journalist Fintan O’Toole ( irishtimes.com, March 7, 2020).
God’s sovereignty does not only teach us humility but it also gives us hope. Amidst the anxieties around us, we can have God’s perfect peace. John 16:33 says: “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
Photo credits: VolodyaVoronin https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Morning_fog_in_Kemeri.jpg
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