What does it mean to do the will of God? How do you align your will to God’s will? Are you focused on God or on the world around you? Proverbs 16:3 says, “Commit your works to the Lord, and your thoughts will be established.” This is a promise of success in our activities so long as our activities are consistent with the will of God. I will address the three questions I have mentioned but first, let us dive deeper into the verse itself.
The first word of Proverbs 16:3 is commit. Commit can be used to mean “to give charge of or entrust”. We can see it being used this way in Job 5:8. It can also mean “to roll” which is being used this way in Psalms 37:5. Here the word commit is used as a command. Works is the next word we will define. When you commit your works to the Lord, you are giving God “things worked on the object of one’s energy and focus, labor”. The next part of this proverb is a promise. Your thoughts are defined as “the content of reasoning and thinking or the act of thinking or reflecting.” Your thoughts will be established. Established, as it is used here, means “to prove, secure, arranged, sustained, with a focus on the durability and lasting of the situation”. We are commanded to give God the things upon which we are spending energy and time. When we do this, we are promised our thinking will be in the right place.
Now what does it mean to do “the will of God?” We can go to Scripture and find the answer to this question. God wants us to love and serve one another. We must do this to fulfill God’s will for us. Consider the words of Jesus in John 15:9-17. As Jesus commands, we are to love one another, be servants, and keep God’s commandments. When we do this to the best of our abilities, we are doing the will of God.
By Aaron Anderson (February 19, 2023)