What’s the right answer? As I write this meditation on Proverbs, students are wrapping up their school year. Seniors are finishing up their last year of high school and preparing for their next big step. Final exams are a step away, and summer is just around the corner. This is a time for big questions like, “Who am I?” What is my destiny or purpose? How do I get there?
Let’s consider five verses from Proverbs 16. “The reflections of the heart belong to mankind, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. All a person’s ways seem right to him, but the Lord weighs motives. Commit your activities to the Lord, and your plans will be established. The Lord has prepared everything for his purpose— even the wicked for the day of disaster. Everyone with a proud heart is detestable to the Lord; be assured, he will not go unpunished.” (Proverbs 16:1–5, CSB)
The five individual proverbs in this whole stand on their own, but together they provide a broader perspective. In those lines is the conflict we all struggle with and its resolution.
God has created mankind with a creative and motivated heart. We want, we build, we determine what seems right, but that is only half of the answer. Motives matter. Our prepared purpose belongs to God. The answer is neither in the proud license of free will nor in a divine fatalism devoid of personal desires. The answer is in permissive submission to God’s will.
God built us with the desire to dream, create, reflect, and build. Some use that ability to gather a meaningless fortune. Others use that ability to enslave or abuse others created in God’s image. Many wander without any real purpose. We are built to dream and to submit those thoughts, dreams, and desires to God and follow where He leads us. It is only through humble submission that our plans, dreams, and desires become established in their full purpose.
What is in your heart to do? What seems right? Dream, reflect, create, submit, and follow. The Lord knows what He has prepared for you, but we may only see shadows and glimmers of His plan. But when we submit and follow His lead, the results will be more than we could have imagined.
This is not a pathway to success as the world measures it. Our result may seem like a small thing to many. Yet, this is a pathway to satisfied fulfillment. Only those who submit their dreams, desires, and lives to Jesus and follow Him obtain satisfied fulfillment in life. Jesus put it this way, “A thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance.” (John 10:10, CSB)
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