We’re all guilty of responding to certain questions with typically trite and mindless answers; like, “What’z up?” Answer: “Nutin’.” Or, “What would you like for dinner?” “Whatever.” Or, “Where are you going tonight?” “Nowhere.” Then there’s my favorite: “How ya’ doing?” “Good.”
Now I confess, I often pose this question to set up my listener for a theological retort. I counter with, “No you’re not; not theologically. The Bible teaches that we’re all sinners by nature, and therefore, by practice.” Actually, this exchange reflects a good reminder of what the Bible teaches in more than a few places. For one, in Romans 3:12 we read: “There is no one who does good, not a single one.” Elsewhere, Jesus Himself educates us in this realm with this one extraordinary exception clause, “No one is good, except God alone.”
There’s another trite and thoughtless answer, but I rarely, if ever, hear it. I wish I did; for it should be said often and thoughtfully. Because life happens and things change, we need to always be good to go with the flow. I’m going to take a little pastoral license with the Biblical text from which I’ll be preaching this coming Sunday. My rewrite of James 4:13-16 read: “Look here, Bob, today you had planned to preach in Romans 1. But you know your life will be different come Tuesday when you undergo the surgeon’s scalpel. What you ought to have said in your planning is, “Lord Willing.” So I won’t be preaching from Romans 1 and continuing with our current sermon series, but instead, I’ll be guiding our church family into “digging even deeper” in James 4.
Why not determine to come this Sunday to learn more about this oft-neglected, what-should-be, daily attitude? Lord Willing, of course.