Lord, I Give You This New Week

Good morning. This is Morning Prayer from Bearing Fruit.

It's Monday morning, the first page of a new week. The calendar is already filling up, and some of it will be waiting for you before breakfast. Before those plans start running the week, we'll hear what James said to some people who were sure about tomorrow. Let's bring this to God together.

In James chapter four, verses thirteen to fifteen, James writes this.

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business, and make a profit.” 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 the Lord is willing, we will live and do this or that.”

James 4:13-15

Just before this, James warns believers about pride and reminds them that God gives grace to the humble. Then he turns to some traders. They've picked the city and how long they'll stay, and they've already counted the profit.

There's nothing wrong with a plan like that. Trade is honest work, and thinking a year ahead can be wise. What troubles James is how they talk, as though tomorrow already belonged to them. In the next verse he calls it boasting in proud intentions.

Many of us start a new week a bit like those traders. The calendar's filled in, every square, with a deadline circled near the end. Or it's the first week of a job you worked hard to get. By the middle of the week, though, the plan can start giving the orders. We decide how we're doing by how much of it got done.

Then James tells them they're a mist. If you've watched fog lift off a field at sunrise, you know how quickly it goes. He says it plainly, so that proud people will remember who holds their days.

So James gives them better words, the ones that begin, if the Lord is willing. Their plans are still there. What changes is who they believe is in charge. And it's more than a phrase to add at the end of a sentence. Paul told the believers in Ephesus he'd come back if God was willing, and then he set sail.

Proverbs puts our planning and God's direction side by side.

A man’s heart plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps.

Proverbs 16:9

Earlier in the same chapter, there's a promise that's easy to hear on its own.

All a man’s ways are pure in his own eyes, but his motives are weighed out by the Lord. Commit your works to the Lord and your plans will be achieved.

Proverbs 16:2-3

Before the promise comes the weighing. The Lord looks at why we do what we do, so this is no blank check. Committing your work to God means handing it over, and letting Him change it.

Psalm one eighteen celebrates a day when God came to the rescue.

The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is from the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day that the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.

Psalm 118:22-24

Jesus quoted the line about the rejected stone, and His apostles later preached that He was that stone. He was rejected and crucified, and God raised Him from the dead. So when we pray this psalm over a new week, our gladness rests on what God has already done. It doesn't need the week to go smoothly.

Through Jesus, the Father has already welcomed you, and that won't change with how much of your list gets done.

Let's pray. You can pray these words with me, out loud or in your heart.

Father, it's the start of a new week, and before I plan any of it, I come to You through Jesus. He gave His life on the cross for my sins, and on the third day You raised Him. Because of Him, I'm Yours before anything on my list gets done.

You hold every day of this week. You knew how it would go before I wrote any of it down. My life is a mist, and You're the everlasting God. Your Son was the stone the builders rejected, and You made Him the cornerstone. So I pray with the psalmist. “This is the day that the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” I'm glad because of what You've done, before I know anything about how this week will go.

You've seen my plans, Father. Some of them are good. Some I made without asking You at all. I talk about next month as if I owned it. I've trusted my calendar more than I've trusted You. When a day went the way I planned, I took the credit. When people got in the way of it, I was short with them. Some of what I'm chasing has more to do with looking capable than with loving anyone. You weigh motives, and You've seen mine. Forgive me for boasting in my own plans, and for treating tomorrow as if it belonged to me.

There's a weight I'm carrying too. The week feels heavy before it's started. I'm afraid of falling behind, and there's one thing on the calendar I'd rather not face. I bring that to You as well, because it's too heavy for me on my own.

So I commit this week to You. Your word says, “Commit your works to the Lord and your plans will be achieved.” Here are my works. Weigh them. If something on my list is there out of pride, show me, and help me let it go. Where my plans are good, help me work hard at them, with a clear head and an honest heart. Give me wisdom about what comes first and what can wait. When the week changes shape, and it probably will, help me meet the change without panic.

I want to say James' words and mean them. “If the Lord is willing, we will live and do this or that.” I'm holding these plans with open hands. You're free to rearrange them. “A man’s heart plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps.” I've planned my course as well as I know how. I trust You with the steps.

I pray for others starting this week. For someone whose plans fell apart last week, and who doesn't know what to plan now. For someone with no work to go to this morning, who'd give anything for a full calendar. Be near them, Father, and open a way forward for them. And hold in Your hands the week of everyone praying this with me.

Father, here's my week. In a few minutes I'll open the calendar and start on the first thing. Go with me into it. When I'm tempted to run the whole week in my head, bring me back to this one day. When something I didn't plan for comes along, help me ask whether it's from You before I push it away. Make me patient with whoever interrupts me. You may have sent them. Let me work faithfully, and rest when it's time. Tonight, let me leave what's unfinished with You. If I reach the end of the week with half the list still there, I'm still Yours, and so is the week. In Jesus' name, amen.

Take a moment of quiet now, and bring Him whatever's in front of you today.

Hear this blessing from Numbers chapter six, the words God gave His priests to bless His people.

May the Lord bless you and keep you; may the Lord cause His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; may the Lord lift up His countenance toward you and give you peace.

Numbers 6:24-26