Commit Your Way to the LORD

The Bible provides God's wisdom for life.  God graciously provides blessing to those who seek Him and obey His Word.  Psalm 37:3-5 says, "Trust in the LORD, and do good; dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness. ⁴ Delight yourself also in the LORD, and He shall give you the desires of your heart. ⁵ Commit your way to the LORD, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass."  Trusting in God and faithful reliance upon Him to supply our needs now and for the future are central themes in scripture.

David's exhortation to trust in the LORD hearkens back to the goodness of God in the past and present.  God who fed them in the wilderness provided them land as an inheritance where they flourished.  Those who delighted themselves in the LORD would have desires which aligned with the One who delights to do good and save.  The Word He provided would be a lamp unto their feet and a light unto their path to show the right way to live.  David urged, "Commit your way to the LORD, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass."

The definition of the Hebrew word translated "commit" may surprise you.  The Strong's concordance says it means, "to roll (literal or figurative), commit, remove, roll (away, down, together)."  Webster's 1828 Dictionary says (among many options) it is:  "to give in trust; to put into the hands or power of another; to entrust; to put into any place for preservation; to deposit."  A "commital" is a traditional part of a funeral service, to commit the deceased to the earth or sea.  When a person commits a crime they are irreversibly guilty of breaking the law.  David says to commit your way to the LORD as we trust Him to sovereignly guide us.  Psalm 37:23 reveals the one whose ways is committed to God:  "The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD, and He delights in his way."

In 10-pin bowling, a heavy ball is rolled from a distance to knock down pins and score points.  60 feet from the pins there is a foul line the bowler's feet are not permitted to cross.  Once a bowler reaches the foul line the ball must be released from the hand.  It might be tempting to walk past the line and roll the ball at point-blank range to improve a result, but that is not bowling:  one must aim at the mark, commit the ball to the lane, and trust the ball to hook into the pocket for a strike.  To commit is to release and roll away from us, and that is something we can be loathe to do.  We like to have control and affect an outcome for our benefit.  We feel uneasy to trust God and our grubby hands clutch our ways, foolishly thinking we know more and do better than God.  We would love to cut corners off the course God has set for us to run to reach the end more speedily.  Yet when we hold on in unbelief we can disqualify ourselves from God's gracious blessings.

Proverbs 16:9 dovetails well with the conditional promises in Psalm 37:  "A man's heart plans his way, but the LORD directs his steps."  Because God has given each person a will of their own there will always be tension between our will and God's will, between our responsibility and God's sovereignty.  The man whose steps are ordered by God in whom He delights trusts in Him, delights in God, and commits his way to the LORD.  The way we commit our way unto the LORD is to trust and obey Him.  There is only so much that depends upon us, and even our dependence upon God is by the grace of God.  The one who trusts God and commits his way to the LORD in faith will ultimately enjoy a favourable outcome in God's time and way.  After all, what is more favourable than our faithful God delighting in us?