Proverbs 16:3

Commit your deeds to the Lord and your plans shall succeed.

The titles of self-help books are always eye catching; ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People’, ‘The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’. The books are aiming to help the reader become something that the reader feels they’re not, for example ‘influential’ or ‘effective’. We learn in the bible, there’s no ‘self’ involved in being successful or influential. Yes, working really hard for yourself can make you successful or influential to the world’s standards, but that is fleeting and certainly the path to going further away from God, rather than towards (Matthew 19:23-24).

The Bible is a God-help book. The Bible offers up sound advice for how one can be successful and influential, and they all involve searching for help and support from God, not ourselves. Why would the bible not contain the phrase ‘God helps those who helps themselves’? That’s not what grace is all about. Grace is about God loving us because he knows we can’t help ourselves. Surely the fact that there are plethora of self-help books released every year shows that no one has truly worked out how to help them-self with every aspect of their life, or really what ‘success’ actually is. The whole point of the gospel is faith and trust alone in Jesus is all we need to be saved, and that is the success everyone is searching for. God doesn’t need our good works. He certainly requests that we work hard towards the furthering of his Love and the gospel (1 Corinthians 10:31), and doing so is evidence of a strong faith and trust and understanding .

I have plans to succeed. I have plans to live comfortably, provide for my family, have a good job in a good workplace and let others know about God. Which of those deeds should I commit to the Lord? All of them, certainly, but I feel that providing for my family and letting others know about God, the two plans that align with God’s desire for spreading his Love and the gospel, are going to do better at succeeding. Why? Because if I’m focused on providing for my family and letting others know about God, it might mean myself not living comfortably, and not having a good job in a good workplace. All four plans might succeed, by God’s grace, but there is no reason I should expect all four to, and God could take away my living comfortably so that I focus more on spreading the gospel. Being successful means choosing what you want to be successful in; we can’t be successful in everything. For me, I feel being successful in loving others holds so much more worth than being successful for myself.

ASK YOURSELF: What are your plans? Are your plans for comfort or the furthering of God’s Love to this broken world? Have you committed your deeds to the Lord?