“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.’ 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. Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.'” (James 4:13-15, NIV)
The late French President Charles De Gaulle is famously quoted as saying: “The cemeteries are full of indispensable men.”
To guard against “overplaying” our hand in this life requires humility, which may be defined as saying, “God, you are God — and I am not.”
The continuous acknowledgement of God’s supremacy as we move from assignment to assignment, and task to task, takes nothing from us. On the contrary, it gives each moment a will and a purpose that reflects the presence of the Almighty. – Luther