Tuesday, May 5 — Hand It Over
You can plan all you want. The plans are not the problem. The problem is what you do with them when they hit the air.
Proverbs 16:1-3, 8-9 — KJV
The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from the LORD. All the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes; but the LORD weigheth the spirits. Commit thy works unto the LORD, and thy thoughts shall be established. ... Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues without right. A man's heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps.
Proverbs 16:1-3, 8-9 — WEB
The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the LORD. All the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the motives. Commit your deeds to the LORD, and your plans shall succeed. ... Better is a little with righteousness, than great revenues with injustice. A man's heart plans his course, but the LORD directs his steps.
Explanation
Proverbs is a strange and wonderful book. It is wisdom literature — short, dense, pithy lines that turn over slowly in your mind, like a stone you keep picking up off your desk. Most of these proverbs are credited to Solomon, the king who, when given a single wish, asked God for wisdom instead of money. The book reads like the field notes of a person who has been paying attention for a very long time.
Today's verses are about the gap between what we plan and what actually happens. The proverbs do not mock our planning. Plans are good. The Bible has no patience with people who refuse to think ahead. But it draws a line between planning and controlling. Verse 9 has been read and reread for three thousand years because it tells the truth so cleanly: a man's heart devises his way, but the LORD directs his steps. You can lay out your map all you want. The road still does what the road does.
The hinge of the passage is verse 3. Commit your works to the LORD, and your plans shall succeed. The Hebrew word for "commit" is one of those wonderfully physical words. It means literally to roll something — to roll your work onto God like rolling a heavy stone off your own back and onto someone strong enough to carry it. Notice what is not being asked of you. You are not being asked to stop working. You are not being asked to give up your goals. You are being asked to put the weight of them down at the right address.
Most of us are exhausted because we are trying to be both the worker and the guarantor. We do the labor and we also try to manage every outcome. We do the deal and we also try to manage what the client thinks. We raise the kids and we also try to lock in the future. It is too much. We were not built for it. The proverb pulls our hands off the steering wheel of things we never had control of in the first place and tells us to do our part with a quiet heart.
There is a small word in verse 8 that is easy to miss: better. Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues without right. The world keeps telling us that more is the goal. The proverb says the goal is integrity. A small honest paycheck blesses you. A bigger crooked one corrodes you. The way you do the work matters more than how much of it you have.
This is the wisdom we carry into our week of useful work. Plan honestly. Commit your work to the Lord. Then go do it without choking the life out of yourself trying to control what was never yours to control.
Thought for the day: You do the work. You do not have to do God's job too.
Reflection question: What plan or project have you been gripping so tightly that you have forgotten to roll it onto the Lord? What would it look like to actually let go today?
Prayer
Lord, we are planners and worriers, and we get those two things confused. Teach us to think clearly, work faithfully, and trust you with the parts we cannot see. Loosen our grip where we have been trying to be God instead of letting you be God. Make our small days righteous days. Amen.
This week we walk toward Sunday's lesson: Useful Work as Christian Duty.