🔗 The wisdom of Deo Volente

Just as Muslims say “inshallah,” after mentioning plans to do something, so also can the Christian keep God’s providence in mind when discussing what the future may bring.

This hit home for me recently.

James 4:13 instructs those who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money” with the reminder, “You do not even know what will happen tomorrow…Instead you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that’”. It’s not that the Bible condemns forward planning, but it’s simply that we should never leave God out of our future plans. In the old days people used to add the letters D.V. to all such intentions, an abbreviation for a short Latin phrase, Deo Volente, which means ‘God willing’.