May 10: The recipe for success

Commit your actions to the Lord, and your plans will succeed. (Proverbs 16:3  NLT)

This promise is basically a recipe for guaranteed success, but so hard to believe.  Everyone knows that success involves so many unknown variables.  Many good hard-working people suffer failure, and the self-help section of every bookstore is jammed with “how to succeed” handbooks that are full of trite clichés and empty promises.  Most Christians brush off this little promise as if it were one more cliché, not to be taken seriously.

Another reason why few really believe in this verse, is they think they already know many who have “committed” their work to the Lord, and yet live miserable lives.  “What about those people?  This promise didn’t work for them,” they say.  But all the difference lies in the true understanding between really committing your work to the Lord, or just claiming to commit your work to the Lord.

Someone who commits themselves to someone or something, is a person who devotes, and even relinquishes their life to that other party.  Your wedding vows represent a mental, spiritual, emotional and physical relinquishing of your life to your new spouse, for the rest of your lives, through thick and thin, sickness and health, better or worse.  Committing your life, and your work to God is a mental, spiritual, emotional and even physical relinquishing of control over your work and your plans to the Creator of all things.   

But most Christians fool themselves into believing that because they made some sort of prayer asking for God to bless their work, that automatically, God has to establish all their plans.  Yet there is no true committing of their work, no true faith, no submission to His requests, no relinquishing of control, not even a consideration of what His desires might be for them.  When God asks anything of them, they balk.  Give up extra hours at work or sleep to come to church Sunday morning?  That’s too much, can’t do it.  Start giving my tithe?  God knows I can’t afford that now, when He blesses me with a better salary, I’ll think about it.  Cut out the unethical work practices?  God understands this is a competitive economy — sorry, God, just can’t do it.  

But those who are bold enough to commit, devote, and relinquish their work and plans to God, are guaranteed to have God Himself, establish them.  It’s so simple and straightforward, it overrides all the unknown variables, no matter what they are.  Start taking that risk to commit your work to Him — all the way.  You only have everything to gain.