Wednesday, September 3, 2025  

Today's Scripture
James 4:13–5:6

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town and spend a year there, doing business and making money.” Yet you do not even know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wishes, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil. Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it commits sin.

Come now, you rich people, weep and wail for the miseries that are coming to you. Your riches have rotted, and your clothes are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be evidence against you, and it will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure during the last days. Listen! The wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in pleasure; you have nourished your hearts in a day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the righteous one, who does not resist you. (NRSVUE)

Reflection

Judging from today’s devotional scripture, managing our time and “to do” lists are concerns at least as old as biblical history. In our Western culture, we believe that we have a lot of personal discretion with respect to our time. Everyday conversation reveals that we believe we have the power to “make time,” “save time,” “spend time,” “cede time,” “lose track of time,” or even just outright “waste time.” Given the amount of control each of us appears to have over our time, it’s baffling how so many of us later in life come to feel that we “don’t have enough time.”

To the degree that much of what we plan to do with our time often has little to do with caring for others, there is little wonder why today’s scripture reading reminds of the sinful nature of such selfish plans as well as the futility of trying to find joy and fulfillment in the riches of this world — the “fruit” of our me-centered existences.

Throughout the Bible, several passages inform us that God is saddened, indeed, “grieved” by the cruel and thoughtless actions of humankind. In our modern world, some degree of cruelty and neglect are often baked right into the plans we make and follow and are written off by most of us as the price of progress (see the “laborers” and “harvesters” noted above). And with each self-centered “to do” list we develop, we all grieve God a little more.

Like every other good and perfect gift that comes from God, the gift of time is meant to be used in ways that glorify God through the love, care, and service we extend to each other. This selflessness, in turn, would serve to make everyone’s “time” in God’s creation more peaceful, more productive, more fulfilling, and more joyful. Isn’t it time for all of us to do more of what really matters?

Prayer

Lord, please teach each of us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Amen. (Psalm 90:12)

Written by John Marr, Member of Fourth Presbyterian Church

Reflection and Prayer © Fourth Presbyterian Church

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