- To man belong the plans of the heart, but from the LORD comes the reply of the tongue. (Proverbs 16:1)
- In his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps. (Proverbs 16:9)
- The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD. (Proverbs 16:33)
We are told "Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and your plans will succeed." (Proverbs 16:3) This seems straight forward enough, but there is a spiritual catch: even though the sentence is written as a conditional statement (e.g., if A then B) it is actually a logistic tautology (i.e., a statement that is always true). Why do I say this? Well, by committing what you do to the Lord, you are committing yourself to his will. Once 100% committed to his will, you will not devise plans that go against his will. And finally, we're back at verse 4 with God's will always being served in the end.
So it's easy right: if we simply align our will with God's will our plans will always be successful. But I don't always know God's will! I am often bumbling around in the dark. And when God's will is filled with pain and suffering on my part (or even worse my family and friend's part), how easy is it for me to align myself with his will. That's the rub right? It sounds so nice and peaceful: "Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven". But God's will is rough! Look at what he asked of his son. Or of what He asked of Paul, of Peter, of John, of all those who loved him dearly; they all knew the "fellowship of sharing in his[Christ's] sufferings" (Philippians 3:10).
So we must take comfort in knowing that God's will will be served in the end and that his will is good for all (including me). We take this on faith. But, when "faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see" (Hebrews 11:1) we will often find ourselves standing in a sea of tangible evidence to the contrary!
So where am I going with all of this? I don't really know :) I guess that I am wrestling with some of my oldest spiritual difficulties (and maybe man's in general). I know that I have free will; however, I and the universe in general will be better served if I align my will with that of God's. But, how am I certain of God's will when his path is often strewn with pain and suffering that appears contrary to what I might even trust as God's will.
2 comments:
What should we say then? Did not David commit to the Lord his actions? Yet his plans did not include running from Saul for a decade. I can tell you that commitment to the lord is not why many of my Christian friends have succeeded. It is because of God's unmeritted blessing. He chooses who to bless and curse and it doesn't seem to matter about one's actions or commitments. My life experience stands directly opposed to this chapter.
Karl, I think that your life is in agreement with the last sentence in my blog, "how am I certain of God's will when his path is often strewn with pain and suffering that appears contrary to what I might even trust as God's will". We might use this as a definition of the human condition: We are destined to live in a constant state of contradiction in which we believe in the ideas of justice, righteousness, and love but are continually hemmed in by their antithesis. I would even say the non-suicidal-atheist succumbs to this hypocrisy.
As Christians we accept the paradigm of a benevolent creator and a fallen world as explanation for the tension between belief and observation. However, this paradigm still begs the question, "If God is so benevolent, then why do I get smacked by the cursed stick so often regardless of my actions and/or belief structure". And this is, as you pointed out Karl, because God's blessing is unmerited.
This is why I spent the time dissecting the third verse of this chapter. Though it is written as such, this is not a verse concerning causation. In fact, the second half of the sentence is poetic fluff: your plans will only truly succeed if they are God's plans. This is then related to the first half of the verse only by a chain of implications as I briefly mapped out earlier.
Karl, I will continually pray for God's mercy on you and your family. I pray for clarity of vision regarding His will. I pray that you can find joy in your suffering. And finally, I pray that my requests are not curses on your family but the blessings for which I perceive them.
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