Have you realized that planning your day can be a part of your devotional life? The wise counsel of Proverbs 16:3 says, “Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established.” Your plans, according to this verse, “will be established” only as you “commit your work to the Lord.”
Moreover, the rest of the Bible teaches us that we can’t expect our plans to be established if they or our work are contrary to the Lord’s will. But this verse states another link between our plans and our work to execute those plans: committing our works to the Lord.
The Hebrew word here translated commit means “to roll,” and is used in Genesis 29:10 of Jacob rolling a stone from the mouth of a well. The same word is used at the beginning of Psalm 37:5: “Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act.”
How do we do this? “This would be accomplished with a spirit of humility and by means of a diligent season of prayer,” says one Old Testament scholar.1
One way I often try to put this into practice is to take my to-do list for the day and write a generous estimate beside each activity of how long I expect it to take. In light of my fixed commitments, usually I see that there aren’t enough hours in the day to accomplish everything on the list. But it’s always better for me to realize this in advance than to discover it in frustration toward the end of the day. Then I can look prayerfully over the list to determine which items get priority and which must be moved to tomorrow’s list. I commit the remaining items on the list to the Lord, asking for His guidance and blessing.
Rolling each anticipated event of the day upon the Lord simplifies my spiritual life by integrating my spirituality with daily living. Instead of segmenting the things of God from “real life,” or perceiving my devotional life as merely another part of my day, I look to Him regarding my entire day. Doing this at the outset usually results in a greater God-consciousness in the midst of the details and ordinary activities of the day as well.
To begin my day without any sense of the Lord’s will regarding my plans, or to begin my works without committing them to the Lord, reflects the same kind of independence that brought sin into the world. By contrast, dependence on God is at the heart of true spirituality. As Jesus was often found beginning His day in dependent prayer, and as acceptance with God comes only through dependence upon the work of Jesus on our behalf, so there is wisdom in a conscious, Godward look of dependence about our plans for this day.
1 Frank E. Gaebelein, gen. ed., The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, vol. 5, Proverbs by Allen P. Ross (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1991), 1002-1003.
