Do you consult God before making decisions? (75-3)

James 4:13-17 states “Now listen, you who say, ‘today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.’ Why you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.’ As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil. Anyone then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn’t do it sins.”

James is not against planning. He is not putting down trends, charts, graphs or planning meetings. He is not making an argument against commitments. James is simply warning us that our freedom to make plans is not a license to live free from God. Using plans to live free from God is arrogance. Every Christian leader should allow the phrase “if it is the Lord’s will” to infect their thinking and become a standard part of their vocabulary.

In his dealings with the Gibeonites, Joshua failed to consult God and made a bad decision and a bad plan. Read Joshua 9:1-27.

Israel lived with the consequences of a decision that God did not approve. The Israelites gathered data and made an agreement and a workable plan for co-existing with the Gibeonites but they missed a crucial step: “The men of Israel… did not inquire of the Lord.” Joshua was an action oriented-leader just as many of you are. When action-oriented leaders miss the crucial first step of seeking God’s will the results may obligate them for years or even a lifetime to less than desirable results.

When Joshua did not first consult God but made a plan to negotiate with the Gibeonites and ignore God’s order to destroy the city, he allowed compromise to jeopardize God’s mission. As you read to the end of the chapter, you will see Joshua implemented “Plan B” that made the best of a bad situation but the end results were far from optimum.

Do you have a tendency to use your God given talents and skills to rush into a decision before seeking God about it in prayer? Make a conscious decision to take some time to consult God before making a decision and the corresponding plan.