What are Your Plans For 2015?

Christmas is ended and we look forward to a new year. We have no idea what this new year will bring. It may bring pleasure or it may bring heartache.
-
I think back to the end of 2005. I was still single then, and my friend Katie was telling me that I would marry her best friend who I had never even met. I did not take her seriously because people had been trying to set me up with their friends for years and nothing ever worked out. But when Katie’s friend Crystal came home from a year in Peru, I started to wonder if perhaps I should pay a little more attention to her.
-
Sure enough, Crystal and I fell in love, got married, and now have 4 little boys. We had not even met in 2005, but were married by the end of 2006. Neither of us were expecting this to happen. It seems that Katie was the only one who did. Of course God was not taken by surprise either. He knew all along what would happen. “Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:” (Isaiah 46:10)
-
Often when a new year starts, people make resolutions, but those resolutions are frequently broken before February. Sometimes they are broken because of a lack of will power, but often they are broken because events occur that are out of our control.
-
In the Bible, the book of James tells about some people who had resolved to do business in a city over the next the year and make some profit. It was not a bad goal or even a foolish business venture. The problem was that they figured that they could have their next year all planned out and that it would work out just like they expected it to. Further, as they were planning out their year, they were focusing on what they could make for themselves, rather than remembering God.
-
Consider what James wrote: “Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow, we shall go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit." Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we shall live and also do this or that." But as it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil.” (James 4:13-16 NASB)
-
As we come to the next year, let us remember that things may not work out like we had planned. They might be better than we expected or they might be worse. Perhaps the next year will be boring and uneventful. Regardless of what happens in our lives, let us remember that it will not take God by surprise.
-
Our conduct does have an effect on our lives, but we must realize that we are not the gods of our own destinies. When I was a farmer, I quickly realized that the one variable that had the most effect on yield was the weather. It reminded me that although I had a responsibility to engage in good farming practices and that the better job I did, the better my yields would be, that ultimately, whether I had a huge crop or a failure, depended on the grace of God and what kind of weather He sent.
-
Regardless of your plans and goals for the next year, remember that God is in control, not us.