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From: James 4:13-17

Trust in Divine Providence

[13] 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 get gain”; [14] whereas you do not
know about tomorrow. What is your life? for you are a mist that appears for a
little time and then vanishes. [15] Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we
shall live and we shall do this or that.” [16] As it is, you boast in your arrogance.
All such boasting is evil. [17] Whoever knows what is right to do and fails to do
it, for him it is sin.

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Commentary:

13-17. Overweening self-confidence is a type of pride because it means one is
forgetful of who God, in his providence, rules over the lives of men. St James
reminds those who are totally caught up in their business affairs that human life
is something very impermanent (v. 14). He made the same point earlier with the
simile of the flower of the grass (cf. 1:9-11); now he puts it in terms of the fleeting-
ness of mist (a familiar Old Testament image; cf., e.g., Job 7:7-16; Ps 102;4; Wis
2:4). “Earthly life is a wearisome thing,” St Gregory the Great reminds us, “more
unreal than fables, faster than a runner, with many ups and down caused by un-
reliability and weakness; we shelter in houses made of clay (in fact, life itself is
merely clay); our fortitude, our resolution, has no substance; such rest and re-
pose as we get in the midst of our activities and difficulties is of no help” (”Expo-
sition on the Seven Penitential Psalms”, Ps. 109, Prologue).

A Christian should trustingly abandon himself into the hands of God, but that
does not in any sense mean that he may irresponsibly opt out of his duties or a-
void exercising his rights.

15. “If the Lord wills”: this expression is to be found elsewhere in the New Tes-
tament; St Paul uses the same words (cf. 1 Cor 4:19) or ones like them, when
speaking about his personal plans (cf. Acts 18:21; Rom 1:10; 1 Cor 16:7). It is a
saying which has passed into popular Christian speech and it shows a readi-
ness to leave one’s future in God’s hands, trusting in divine providence.

17. As elsewhere in the letter, St James ends this passage with a general maxim
(cf. 1:12; 2:13; 3:18). In this instance, to emphasize the need to prove one’s faith
and one’s grasp of the faith by action (cf. 2:14-16), he gives a warning about sins
of omission. Once again, the Master’s teachings are reflected in what the sacred
writer says: “the servant who knew his master’s will, and did not make ready or
act according to his will, shall receive a severe beating” (Lk 12:47).

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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.