Your Plans Will Succeed

It’s an annoying little book full of personal questions.

I used it for ice breakers at a home Bible study. It’s a great way for people to get to know one another – whether they want to or not.

It had been buried since we moved a couple years ago, but over the weekend someone unearthed it. There was a party at our house, and suddenly I heard teenagers asking one another personal questions. “It’s the book…” I muttered.

Last night my son’s girlfriend was at the house, and suddenly she said, “Mr. Apple, pick a number!”

I expected to look over and see one of those quadri-folded pieces of paper on her finger tips. You know, the ones where you pick a number, they move it back and forth a few times, lift the little flap and tell you who you are going to marry. What on earth do they call those things anyway?

{sidebar id=1}But I looked over, and it was “the book.”

So I randomly picked the number 22. My wife shouted from the other room that I couldn’t pick number 22 because that was her number when she played basketball in high school. She owned that number and had the jacket to prove it. Then she went and found the jacket and asked my daughter why she didn’t want to wear it to school.

Maybe this is why families get cable TV.

So my question was number 22, which was something like, “Name one major goal in your life, and tell how it’s going so far.”

I said, “A major goal in my life is that my children have their own, personal relationship with God.” “And so far,” I said, “It’s going pretty good. Not that we are such great parents, but God has been really good to us.”

What would I say is the major reason that, so far, we are succeeding in that goal? Apart from the sheer grace of God, I guess it would come down to this. Over all these years, we have committed our parenting to the Lord.

I don’t know how many times I have prayed things like, “Lord, we don’t what we are doing. We don’t know what the future holds, and we don’t know what is best.” Then I, once again, commit our parenting to the Lord. “God, it’s got to be You! You have to be working in our children, and in us as their parents. Help us to do what is best for them, so that they can grow up and follow You in every way.”

I place a lot of trust in Proverbs 16:3 which says, “Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed.” Notice it’s not a passage about parenting. It uses the blanket statement “whatever you do.”

So in what area of life do you want to succeed? Then according to Proverbs 16:3, if you commit that area to the Lord, your plans will succeed.

Our part is committing those plans to the Lord. So how do we do that? What does it mean to commit plans to someone?

Think of it like this. Let’s say I commit a weekend to my wife. That means that weekend is all about her. It’s about her desires, not mine.

By committing that weekend to her, my plans will change to line up with what pleases her. The commitment means it’s about her, not me. And when I do that, it makes for a very successful weekend. (That’s why in over 20 years worth of weekends we still have not made it to Canton, Ohio or Cooperstown, New York.)

It’s sort of like that when I commit my plans to the Lord. That means my plans are all about Him. It’s about His desires, not mine. My plans change to line up with what pleases Him. And when I do that, my plans succeed.

See, it’s not that God stamps “success” on any old willy-nilly plan I make. It’s when I commit my plans to Him that they succeed. And committing them to Him is more than just tossing up a little prayer. When we commit our plans to the Lord, those plans actually change. They conform to His desires, to His will. And then they succeed.

So, do you want to be more successful? Who doesn’t, right?

Then do what it says in Proverbs 16:3, “Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed.”

Comments?

E-mail me: dougapple@wave94.com.

May God bless you today! With Apples of Gold…I’m Doug Apple.

This article originally published on March 18, 2008.

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