My wife is a butterfly. I love to watch her flit from one shiny attraction to another, but I’ve never been known to flit, and I can’t keep up with constant change. I’m more like an octopus: solitary, strategizing, and deliberate. I heard about an octopus named “Ink” who lived at the Seattle Aquarium. Ink had a nightly plan to wait until his keepers had gone home, climb over to the tank next door where the shrimp and lobsters lived, eat his fill, and return to his own place by morning. That’s more my style. I love a good routine, and Ink had a great one.
The book of James has a message for octopi like me, and I will paraphrase it here:
Come now, you octopi who say, “Tonight we will slip over to the neighboring tank and eat our fill of shrimp and lobster.” You don’t know what tonight will bring; only God does. It is sinful and arrogant to think you know what will happen. (Based on James 4:13-16)
I get that message. Whatever happens is because God wills it and not because I will it. But then James ends the thought with these words:
“So, whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.” (James 4:17)
What does this have to do with making plans? Here is my take on it. Ink thought he knew what was best for him, but the keepers had a better plan. Did Ink know he wasn’t supposed to enter the neighboring tank? I’m not an animal psychologist, but if he didn’t know, why did he wait until the keepers were gone? Ink knew what food he was supposed to eat, but he thought he was smarter than the aquarists. I, too, know what is right to do—follow God’s plan. Mine will never be better than His.