Sub Jacobi Conditione

From the FBC Des Moines/Johnston August Newsletter.

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13 Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money.' 14 Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15 Instead you ought to say, 'If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that.' 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil. James 4:13-16

James reminds us that as much as we make plans, as much as we work to get ready for the future, and as much as we think we are in control we have no real control over the future!

You are receiving this newsletter very late this month because a lightening storm decided to play a trick on us a couple of weeks ago. In a flash we lost our phones, Barb's computer, and our internet. You do not realize how dependent a modern office is until you can't answer the phone, can't type a letter, and can't send or receive email! For more than a week this reminded all of us in the FBC office that while we think we know what is going to happen tomorrow everything is a "mist" and can just as easily vanish.

James reminded his readers in James 4 that to think that we are control of the future is a form of arrogance. Only God truly knows what will happen tomorrow. So, this calls us to be humble in all of our planning for the future. We should always seek to take account of God's will. We should always declare "If the Lord wishes" rather than "I will do..." How easy it is for us human beings who think we are so powerful to be humbled by a simple lightening storm, a tornado, or a flood. Some Christian writers have been known to end their manuscripts with the Latin phrase "Sub Jacobi Conditione" which means "under the condition of James" referring to James 4 as a reminder never to take for granted that it is God calling the shots!

These little (and large) mishaps of life remind us that we need to trust even more in God through Jesus Christ who holds the future in His hands!

In Christ's Service,


Timothy Bonney
Sub Jacobi Conditione