Bubbles may have been in your Christmas stocking, or you may have some ready to celebrate with tonight for New Year’s Eve. The moment you blow a bubble, all kinds of ideas float into your mind about watching it travel beyond your yard, guiding it with your breath away from pointy things or catching and preserving it. Those ideas are short lived as most bubbles pop in a matter of seconds, maybe minutes. And, if you are wondering what the record is for longest lasting bubble, it is 1 year 100 days using a far more complex mixture than you find at the local big box store.
Our unrealistic plans for bubbles match the rest of the plans we make for our lives. We quickly learn that making plans for bubbles is foolish because they do not last long and are very difficult to control, but we try to extend and guide their path anyway. And the same is true for our health and wealth. We presume our health and wealth are more predictable and controllable than a bubble, so we plan to maintain and increase our health and wealth. Then, we learn the hard way that both can be as unpredictable and uncontrollable as a bubble. In our Gospel reading from Luke 12:13-21, Jesus burst the bubble of a man whose greed and plans for an earthly inheritance turned his heart from God and heavenly treasure. 13 Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” 14 Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” 15 Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.” Jesus poked the man’s heart with the law exposing his sinful attitude. Then, he opened his eyes to the danger of losing his life to greed. 16 And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. 17 He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ The rich man was surprised by an abundant harvest. From harvest to harvest, so many factors play in that a wise farmer does what seems best always acknowledging that plans are at the mercy of God. 18 “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. 19 And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’ The rich man presumed that he would be able to keep and use his wealth. Plans for future harvests, sharing his abundance or giving an offering to God were not part of his plan. 20 “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’ In a moment, the rich man had wealth, but all his plans meant nothing because his health would come to a screeching halt. The rich man had thought of no one else, nor had he prepared for life with God. And Jesus concluded his parable saying, 21 “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.” We make plans for things like our health and wealth, but all our plans are unrealistic without God.
We do not know what will happen tomorrow. Tomorrow may not happen, but we have plans for it. Tomorrow may happen, but we might not be there to do what we planned. We could talk about tomorrow in a few more ways, but James captures God’s truth about tomorrow in our New Testament reading from James 4, 13 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.” 14 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. 15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. The truth God wants us to trust is that all things happen if it is his will, not ours. Our struggle then is to submit to God’s will when planning. Instead, we often begin with our will for or reaction to a situation, person, aspiration, activity, etc. and if we remember, then ask God to bless it. Then, we do lots of work to make our plans happen despite the many unforeseen and uncontrollable factors, and again without the assurance that it is what God wants to happen. Or we may seek God’s will by reading the Bible to learn what God wants for a given situation, person, aspiration, activity, etc. and plan, but then we may take the credit when things work out. Or, when things do not work out, we blame God, rather than trust his will was done in another way. As James said, we make great boasts about our plans, but our arrogance is evil. So, our plans for tomorrow without God may happen, but without God we have no plan for heaven.
The Lord’s will for your future is one with him. Our lives are like a bubble or mist as James wrote. Our lives are short lived, and our plans end even faster, but God includes us in his plan through Jesus. Jesus always trusted in God’s plan when we would have doubted. When the crowd of five thousand men, not including the women and children, were hungry, he gave thanks to God and fed them all. When his friend Lazarus had been buried in his tomb for four days, Jesus prayed to God and Lazarus walked out of his tomb alive. When Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed for God’s will to be done, though it would cost Jesus his life. When Jesus hung on the cross, he prayed for those who put him there. Jesus carried out the will of the Lord to offer his righteous life as a sacrifice for our arrogant sinful boasting. Our Old Testament reading from Isaiah 51, turns us to Jesus for lasting salvation and a lasting future beyond this world that will wear out and vanish, 1 “Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness and who seek the Lord: 6 Lift up your eyes to the heavens, look at the earth beneath; the heavens will vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment and its inhabitants die like flies. But my salvation will last forever, my righteousness will never fail. The Lord knows your plans, both the foolish and faithful, and he knows when you will die. The Lord also planned your salvation, and he knows when you will go to live with him forever. The Lord’s plan for you to be with him will never fail.
The Lord does want us to make plans. James does not encourage us to stop making plans, but to give up making plans outside of God’s will. In the last verse of our New Testament reading from James 4, the general truth is stated, 17 If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them. Applying this general truth to planning, we understand that it is sinful to avoid making plans to do what is good. We avoid making plans to do sinful things. Planning sin is like making plans for mist or bubbles which vanish and leave us with nothing. Instead, we make plans to do what is good. We live in the mercy of God, so we include him in plans for things like health and wealth. We take care of our bodies recognizing them as a gift from God and live with confidence that when our bodies wear out slowly or life is taken quickly, eternal life with God is ours through Jesus. We also make plans for our wealth that provide for our needs along with the needs of our family and friends, the poor, widowed and orphaned, the church and its ministries, and the government. We submit all our plans to the Lord’s will by spending time in Scripture each day and when we are making plans, and we do so with humility, confidence, thanksgiving and peace.
Bubbles may have been in your Christmas stocking, or you may have some ready to celebrate with tonight for New Year’s Eve. We make plans for bubbles as they float through the air, but those plans pop in a matter of seconds, maybe minutes. Our lives quickly vanish like a bubble or mist as James wrote in James 4. We often sinfully presume that our future is in our hands, but God is the one who holds our future. God’s will for us is to be with him in heaven and live for him on earth. So, we ask, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” Amen.
Gunnar Ledermann, Pastor Divine Peace Church
Gunnar Ledermann
I’m passionate about Rockwall’s vibrant community and actively engage with local non-profits and community organizations, including the Rockwall Chamber of Commerce, the City of Rockwall, and the Downtown Rockwall Association. My background includes a bachelor’s degree in Classical Languages and a master’s degree in divinity. Currently serving as a pastor at Divine Peace Church in Rockwall, I also enjoy spending time with my wife, Marinda, and our five children.
