Commit to the Lord

Proverbs 16:3  Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and your plans will succeed.

It sounds so easy.  And yet, how many of us have “committed” our plans and dreams to the Lord and, up to now, are still waiting for them to happen.  Many have given up hope, even given up on God, because we have committed to the Lord so many things, and yet they have not been fulfilled.

What does it mean to commit something to the Lord.

The word commit in Hebrew means “to roll (literal or figurative) :- commit, remove, roll (away, down)”.  An English dictionary will define the word as “Give entirely to a specific person, activity, or cause”.

Many envision committing something to the Lord like assigning work to an employee.  We tell them to do something, give them instructions, and expect them to produce results.  This is why there are so many who are frustrated with God.

Committing something to God begins with recognizing Him as who He is – King.  God is not sitting in His waiting room, and then running frantically to our beck and call, taking our requests and trying so hard to fulfill them according to our expectations.  God is sitting on His throne.  He is King.  The world, our life, is in His hands.  It is He who has plans for us, and not the other way around.  For some, coming to God is saying “Lord, I have this plan of how You can bless my life”.  But for someone who recognizes who God is in his life he says “Lord, I submit to what your plan is for me”.

Jeremiah 29:11-12 (NIV)
11 For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

This is not God promising to fulfill our plans.  This is God telling us that He has plans for us.  They are plans that will prosper us, do us good, and give us a hope and future.  Shouldn’t we be praying for these plans?

12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.

To Commit means that even though we may have plans of our own, desires that we feel are right for us and will bring us good, we lay them down at the feet of our Lord and say “Lord, your will be done”.  When we do this we trust that God will work all things in our life for our good, for our success.

True success, by the way, is not earning more money, or getting the position that we want, or gaining more for ourselves.  The true success that a Christian desires is simply accomplishing what God wants for us, being where God wants us to be, being who He has planned for us to be.  That’s true success.

Acts 17:26-28 (NIV)
26 From one man He made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and He determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.
27 God did this so that men would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though he is not far from each one of us.
28 'For in Him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are His offspring.'