Longtime television newscaster John Chancellor got off a quip several months ago that made me wince.
For months Chancellor and his wife carefully planned their retirement, looking forward to good years of leisure together after hectic decades spent chasing news all over the globe.
Finally came the day they had dreamed of. But with it came a nightmare they never expected. Almost since the day he retired, Chancellor was locked into a grim battle with colon cancer. His illness forced them to cancel or to delay most of the retirement activities they envisioned.
“If you want to make God laugh,” John Chancellor reflected, “tell him your plans.”
I grew up hearing my godly father preface almost every statement he made with James’ quaint scriptural formula, “If the Lord wills.”
“If the Lord wills,” he would say, “I’ll be going to
These are not just pious words to pad the daily conversation of Christians. For people with genuine faith, “if the Lord wills” is the immutable condition that colors all our intentions for tomorrow.
“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,’” James counseled his converts years ago. “Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow.”
Life is so fragile, health so ephemeral. James wanted his readers to face this reality. “What is your life?” he challenged them. And then he answered, “You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” In other words, you’re temporary.
Right now I’m penciling in obligations for the coming year, forging plans that require firm commitments. “I’ll be there,” I promise. “Instead,” James cautions me, “you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.’”
When I sat down to write these words, I hoped it would turn out to be the Lord’s will for John Chancellor and his good lady still to enjoy all the retirement pleasures they dreamed of sharing. Only a few days later his colleagues reported his untimely death.