creation

“Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established.

The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord established his steps.”

Proverbs 16:3, 9

Work is a good thing. God gave us the example of work and rest in Genesis 1, 2. Both are equally important in the lives of all. God worked when He created the world, and then on the 7^th day He rested.

In our society today, we tend to think of work as a bad thing, maybe a necessary evil. We see no hint of complaint on the part of God when he created the world, and we see no grudging comments when He rested. (God didn’t need to rest, but He did so as an example to us.)

Genesis 3 is when we see work distorted by sin. Work is now harder because of the sin of mankind. “Cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread.” (Gen. 3:17-19).

Just because work is now more painful because of sin and it causes us to sweat, does not mean it should be a drudgery. Sin does not make our work easier, but God makes a way for our work to be enjoyable.

1.Commit

Proverbs 16:3 gives us a clue as to how we are to enjoy our work. No matter what we do, whether we collect garbage, are a welder, work as a secretary, have an office job, or care for those who are injured and ill, we can enjoy our work. Proverbs 16:3 says to “commit our work to the Lord.” God gave us our work to do and we must then turn around and commit it to Him.

Too often we struggle with the age old question, “what will I do when I grow up?” There is no place in Scripture that says we must do a certain occupation. God has given us all different talents and abilities and we should us those talents and abilities to honor Him. No matter what we do, if we seek to glorify God in that job and seek to serve those who we work with and for, then we are fulfilling our purpose in life.

Too often we get bogged down with the question of what we will do with our lives and what profession we will embark on or what job we will do. God does not dictate that we do a certain job. He does ask us to commit our work unto Him.

2. Plan

1^st we must commit our work, whatever it is, to the Lord. 2^nd we must plan. Have you ever tried to accomplish a task with and then without a plan? The more things I have to get done in a day, the more I plan. The less things I have to get done in a day, the less I plan. Usually, the days I have a plan, I accomplish much. The days that there is no plan, I accomplish little.

“For God is not a God of confusion/disorder, but a God of peace.” (I Cor. 14:33). God is a God of planning and order. We see this in Creation as God created the world in an orderly way. He did not make the animals before the plants. He did not make the plants before He created the sun. There was an order to Creation because of the dependency of one upon the other. Chaos did not ensue until the fall.

Just as God created the world according to a perfect plan, so we must plan our lives and our days so that we can accomplish much and live by order not chaos. If there is no plan, and we “fly by the seat of our pants” our days will be chaotic and not accomplish much.

3. hold Loosely

3^rd we must hold our plans loosely. Whatever we do, we must know that God may interrupt the plans that we have. If we plan a picnic and it rains, we must trust that God had a plan. If we get hurt on the job through no fault of our own, we must trust that God had a plan.

We must plan, but hold loosely to the plans. If we hold to those plans so tightly and they do not go as we had planned, we may experience anger, depression, fear, anxiety, etc. If we begin to experience these emotions, we know that our thoughts have taken us captive and caused us to think that the world should revolve around us. Things should go according to our plans, not according to God’s plans.

The more we worship God and seek Him and desire to commit our work to the Lord, rather than have our work committed to us, the more we will evidence the Fruit of the Spirit in our lives.

Commit your work to the Lord. Make a plan, but hold to it loosely. God’s ways are always better than our ways, if we are fully committed to God’s ways.