Proverbs 16.3
“Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established.”
Everyone makes plans. We make plans about how to spend our evenings, our weekends, and our holidays. We make plans for what we want to get done at work each day. We plan our finances and our giving. Individuals have plans. Businesses have plans. Teams have plans. Nations have plans.
As I said yesterday, this is both the nature of the world that God created, and it is the nature that God has given to us. We are created to be planners and doers.
However, the Lord did not create us to be autonomous planners and doers. He did not create us and put us on planet earth to act independently of him. God created and called us into relationship with him, and our plans need to align with his purposes and his principles.
This is the focus of the Proverb above: “Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established.”
The same principle is communicated in Proverbs 3.6: “In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will direct your paths.”
And again in Psalm 37.4: “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”
And later in this chapter in Proverbs: “The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.” (Proverbs 16:9)
As important as human planning is, the ultimate outcome belongs to God. All planning should be done in recognition that God can indeed overturn it. The thought is not that we simply pray for God to honor our plans and to establish them. Rather, it is the idea that we submit our entire life’s action to God, so that even if our human plans are subverted, we can recognize an even deeper plan at work in our lives.
There are two ways to go through life. One is to be independent and decide that we are perfectly capable of running our own lives without God. This is the way of arrogance and pride. The arrogant cannot be told anything because they think they already know. The other is to be willing to trust and obey God. This is the way of faith and humility. As Proverbs 15.33 says, “Humility comes before honor.”
Living for our own plans and purposes can be exciting for a season, but ultimately it is a dead-end. It focuses on the the present, but does nothing for eternity. Proverbs admonishes us to be honest about the what, why, and how of our plans. To examine the motives and methods of our plans.
God gives you the freedom and responsibility to make plans. At the same time, he invites you into relationship with him and asks you trust him. Understand his purposes and obey his principles. Pray and ask for wisdom. Submit to his teaching and correction. Do disciplined work.
