Past, Present and Future

DEVOTION

PROVERBS

PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE

Prov 27:1-2

Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth.

2 Let another praise you, and not your own mouth; someone else, and not your own lips.

NIV

Surely these two proverbs go hand in glove. In the first we are told that we should not boast as what we are going to do tomorrow as we first of all do not know we will be alive tomorrow. Our historians tell us the Hebrews called events the sons of time. Time is in some sense our enemy as it keep marching on with or without us. What happens tomorrow happens tomorrow and how could anyone know just what tomorrow brings. We are told not to be anxious about tomorrow, but we are also warned not to boast about what we are going to do tomorrow.

James 4:13-17

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 and brag. All such boasting is evil. 17 Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins.

NIV

It is not that we cannot think about the next day or that what our plan is for it. In most cases we have our work schedule planned out several weeks in advance. We know our social calendar also for several weeks and when certain bills have to be paid and we plan on when the paycheck is available to afford certain entertainments. All this is not what this is speaking of. It is about going around telling everyone what important thing we are going to do tomorrow. “Oh, did you hear, I am going to (fill in the blank) and I am going to be (fill in the blank), it is such an important work” . Not only is that boasting about what tomorrow is going to be in our life, it is also going right into the second proverb, boasting about ourselves with our own lips. Just how important do we think we are? What would ever possess us to boast about ourselves and how much we do and are going to do? First off, all we are, all we do and all we will ever do is because of God. Having said that, however, we should not be boasting about how much God uses us and how he has called us to serve in such an important post or position. Again that is all about us and not about God. It is one thing to relate our experiences in the past as an illustration of how God worked in our lives. That is a witness of the work of God, not of ourselves. Although even in that we have to be careful not to boast about how much God worked in our lives, making us seem as if we are so spiritual and special above others. The fact is God will work through anyone who allows him to, who yields to his leading. There are times when we yield and times when we resist. Do we boast or give witness to those times of resisting? So then let us be careful not to consider too much about tomorrow as to how much we are going to do for God, and let us not boast about any of our “Good deeds” so to speak. Let us live humbly before our God and before others. Let us build each other up until we reach the unity in the faith. Let us not live boastfully about anything, past, present or future.