Depend on the Lord in Whatever You Do
"Depend on the Lord in whatever you do,
and your plans will succeed."
(Proverbs 16: 3)
All of us have wishes and dreams. As a result of these wishes and dreams, we feel the need to try and do something new. We begin to set our focus towards our goals in order to see these dreams come true. And, when we begin to set out on this journey of making these wishes come true, we set off with a lot of plans. These plans are important! But sometimes, some of our plans may be missing the most important element.
Today's Bible verse that we are meditating on is a reminder of successful living. The verse not only reminds us of the basics of planning but also teaches us the importance of faith for a successful life. The verse shows 'dependency' as the most important element of success and this dependency is not on anything else but on the Lord our God.
Just as this verse is a very promising and assuring one, it is also a heavily demanding one. It is a conditional one. The promise of your plans succeeding has a huge demand, and this demand is all about our faith. Let us look into that in detail. It has a meaningful 'if' in it.
A lot of times, when we begin to plan something, we collect all the information about 'what is there?' We calculate our needs of the plan and then we try to tally it with what we have. If it is sufficient or if we are assured that we will be getting sufficient needs as we keep moving, then we go ahead. For example, when we plan to build a house, we either calculate the amount of money and materials that we already have in our hands or we calculate the assured income of the upcoming months. I believe, this is where Proverbs 16: 3 speaks to us.
Let us not first sit and calculate. Let us not do a projection analysis. These things are important, indeed. But the most important thing to do is looking to the Lord our God and saying to Him, 'Lord, it is in you I trust.' It is the dependency on God which is important at this point. And, we could wait and see, how wonderfully and miraculously God opens ways for us. He would work in ways we never thought of! And God will make these plans succeed in ways we never even had a clue about.
Reading back the verse once again, we could realise what is that condition in it? What is that 'if'? Yes. The verse tells us, "IF you want your plans to succeed, then depend on the Lord in whatever you do!" Depend on the Lord for your wishes. Depend on God for your dreams. Depend! But how can we fully depend?
One of my most favourite illustrations of 'depending on the Lord' comes from Joyce Meyer. It is exactly like how dependably you would sit on a chair. Totally putting all your wait on the chair, you sit so relaxedly that you could even stretch and lift your legs and depend on the chair to bear your weight. Such dependence! But imagine, how pitiful it would be to watch a person sitting on a chair, and still unable to trust the chair, and is half-ready with legs on the ground to get up at any time expecting the chair may break?
Many of our life of faith may be looking like that. We say that we depend on the Lord, but we also have our back-up plans! Let us remember, that the promise given in this verse is only for those who depend on the Lord for everything without any backup plans.
Today, let us look to God. Let us keep all the maps, calculations, projections, our bank account books and everything that we have collected to draw the plans aside for a moment. Let us first come into the presence of the Lord. Let us first learn to depend on Him. Let us tell Him that, 'Lord, in spite of having all these things around me, I want to depend on you. I choose to depend on you with this plan I am working on. You lead me. You show me. You open ways for me. You are my provider!' Let us take time to learn to depend on the Lord our God. And, His words promise that our plans will succeed.
I pray that the greatness of our Father our provider - 'Jehovah Jireh' and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the guidance of the Holy Spirit will help us to depend on Him more and more. Let us totally submit our plans into His hands and wait for His mighty miracles to happen and His amazing ways to open. And let us also, as we depend on the Lord totally, remember that since we are depending on the Lord, our plans will surely succeed. God will be leading us throughout.
May God bless you.
Yours in Christ,
"Even if I have all the wealth and everything I need around me,
if Your grace is not there, then all these materials are in vain"
(Kirubai - 'grace' in Tamil)
"Where feet may fail"
