Going Deeper with the Word – Trust in God’s Plan – Not Your Own

Welcome to “Going Deeper with the Word.” In this segment, we welcome people of all backgrounds, religious or not, to review with me the Word of God.  The Word of God provides guidance, direction, and instructions for living our lives and walking with God.  

While I am not a biblical scholar, I have been reading the Bible for several years, so I would like to focus this segment on sharing verses from the Amplified Bible. Let’s review examples of verses that can lead and guide our steps and back up the principles we learned in today’s message.   

Here is our first verse.

Commit your works to the Lord [submit and trust them to Him],
And your plans will succeed [if you respond to His will and guidance].

Proverbs 16:3

In this verse, King Solomon explains that we should commit. (In other words, provide our plans to God), and our plans will succeed. Now, the Amplified Bible provides this additional note for context: ‘submit and trust them to Him.’ I think this note is important to explain here. In providing our plans and, as I mentioned earlier, hopes and dreams to God, we are trusting Him to make the right choices with the plans. The second note in the Amplified Bible for this verse is “If you respond to His will and guidance.” I believe this is also important. In the same notion of sharing our thoughts and plans with God, we should also be ready and willing to respond to His will and guidance, even if that guidance seems to go counter to we what we thought was best.

Let’s have a look at another verse.

A man’s mind plans his way [as he journeys through life],
But the Lord directs his steps and establishes them.

Proverbs 16:9

In this verse, another from King Solomon, we see him explaining that while man can think and contemplate plans, the Lord Almighty God actually directs his steps and establishes the plans. Here, again, we see the importance of trusting God with our plans versus us going it alone with our plans. We see that God not only directs the steps that we may take day by day on a plan, but he also orchestrates the plans themselves. For example, opening doors to allow us to see the way to move forward and closing doors when he is directing us to stop from moving forward.

Let’s look at one more verse.

The counsel of the Lord stands forever,
The thoughts and plans of His heart through all generations.

Psalms 33:11

The reason I pulled this out verse to share with you is because of the second part of the verse.  

I wanted to illustrate here that how God orchestrates a plan can also mean that we are only part of a grander plan that takes over the place over a very large amount of time.  

You may very well bring hopes and dreams to God that God hears and desires to make happen, but you’re involvement is only meant to be for a portion of time in the timeline of that plan.  

For example, earlier in the message, I mentioned how one of my prayers to God is that the gifts that He has planted in me reach millions of people around the world. Well, it could very well be that God has started this plan in motion at this point in time in 2023, knowing that I will never see the realization of this reach in my lifetime, but the plans in motion, for example, this ministry, will carry on into a future generation that will, in fact, reach millions of people. If that is the case, I feel honored and grateful to be allowed to steward this ministry for a time, knowing that it will eventually become something that matches my heart’s desire. 

Giving your plans to God and yielding to His will allows His plan to be revealed to You.  A plan that He knows is best for you!