Although that's probably where some of you suspected I've been...and maybe I should have because sometimes it feels like I need to be.
I've been getting lots of requests lately to get back to blogging and here I am. I knew it'd been a while, but I didn't realize how long until I looked at the date on my last post. I was shocked!
Guess it's been longer than I had remembered. I always have thoughts rumbling around that I want to share with you or ideas or pictures. I just never seem to get that far.
Not today.
Today I get it done.
Together again!
Let's talk about one of those rumbly thoughts--commitment.
The reason for my pondering is Proverbs 16:3
"Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed."
In our get rich quick success driven culture, this seems like the perfect verse. Call it God's and it'll be golden. I really don't think it works that way.
I know there's a lot of good, godly people that, as we say in the south, don't have a pot to pee in. For those of you in the rest of the world, that means they are poor. The world definitely wouldn't define them as successful. It must be more than monetary, success equals more than stuff.
There's more to commitment as well.
When I promise myself I'm going to lose weight or I'm going to be more organized or I'm going to....my plans always end up falling apart. Why?
I promised myself. And my self always ends up going back to its old ways. But committing my plans to the Lord, that's a different story.
Numbers 23:19 tells us, "God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should change His mind. Does He not speak and then not act? Does He promise and not fulfill?"
When God commits to it, it gets done. Instead of making a commitment to myself to do something, I need to commit my plan to Him. What does it mean to commit something?
Dictionary definition of commit: (1) do, perform, or be guilty of; (2) to place in the charge or keeping of another; entrust; (3) to place in confinement or custody; (4) to give over, entrust; (5) to bind or obligate, as by a pledge
Whatever I do, whatever change I want to see, whatever plans I want to make for the future, I have to make a conscious choice. If I want to succeed, I have to (1) make an active decision to (2)place those plans in God's keeping. And then I have to (3) think of them as locked away and not try to take over as soon as God's way of getting me there isn't the way I would have chosen or the easiest way to travel. I have to (4) give over my illusion that I'm smarter than He is when it comes to what's best for me and simply trust. Finally, I have to rest in the knowledge that when I do my part, He'll do His. Because, when I hand over my plans and (5)pledge them to Him, He ALWAYS keeps His promises.
One last thing to note in this verse--the verb tense. "Commit to the Lord whatever you do..." This verse involves action.
We can't just think about it and have success. We have to do. I can dream up a book, a movie, a great business and a mile-long To Do list--all before breakfast. But nothing ever becomes of any of it because the thoughts flit through my mind and that's where I leave them. As thoughts.
I might sometimes go so far as to jot down ideas, but that doesn't cut it either. It is only when we commit to action, when we 'do', that we have any real hope of success. Look up one verse to 16:2 and you'll see, God knows our heart.
There's a big difference between want to and will do.
And the 'will do' is the only thing that will do any good.
What are you committed to today?
"For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to Him." II Chronicles 16:9
