I was unable to focus on a work project because of anxiety; I was afraid that my plans for it wouldn’t succeed. My anxiety came from pride. I believed my timeline and plans were best, so I wanted them to proceed unhindered. A question broke through my thoughts, however: Are your plans God’s plans?

The problem wasn’t my planning─God calls us to be wise stewards of our time, opportunities, and resources. The problem was my arrogance. I was fixated on my understanding of events and how I wanted them to turn out, not on God’s purpose and how He wanted my plans to turn out.

James encourages us to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that” (4:15). We’re to plan not with a presumptuous mindset, thinking we know everything and have control over our life, but from a position of submission to God’s sovereignty and wisdom. After all, we “do not even know what will happen tomorrow.” In our humanness, we’re helpless and weak, like “a mist that appears … and then vanishes” (v. 14).

Only God has authority and power over everything in our lives; we don’t. Through His Word and the people, resources, and circumstances He allows each day, He guides us to live in submission to His will and ways. Our plans aren’t to come from following ourselves but from following Him.