Jan always rolls around for me and I find myself in the same season of thinking through how the previous year went and what the upcoming year will be like. 

And if you're like me, most of what you plan for the upcoming year doesn't happen like you planned it or gets tweaked in various ways. 

Whether it's improving our spiritual health (which is probably an ongoing goal) losing weight or resolving to read a few more books this year, making plans or resolutions isn't an unbiblical or bad idea. 

Something that may help us in this regard is listening to this episode of LOOK AT THE BOOK by John Piper. 

James tells us in his letter,

"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.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance."

The essence of this passage is not that we should avoid thinking about what we will do today or tomorrow but that we might avoid arrogance in thinking we know how those days will come to pass. 

We must rely on the Lord in our resolves and with our plans. If we do that then it will be an 'act of faith' (as Piper states) and God will get the glory. 

I pray this week that James 4 stirs up some good conversations. Talk to your family about how we are to trust our lives, our plans, our resolves, our work to the Lord. Our children have their whole life ahead of them, Lord willing, and we want to build a frame work for them to see that future. 

What is our life? We are a mist that vanishes by the afternoon sun. So many important worldview shaping principles we need the Holy Spirit to seal in our souls and the souls of our families.