Psalm 37:5-6 Commit your way to the Lord;
trust in him and he will do this:
He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn,
the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.

When verse four is so totally famous and loved, I felt I was to write on something else! Actually, the thought is continuous from verse three on through verse seven at least, and it’s a very good one indeed. The theme is heart attitude, and the benefits when that is right. So much depends on how well we trust God! Where the English says, “Commit your way to the Lord,” the Japanese uses a word that means “yield,” or “surrender.” I’ve had Japanese ask me how to do that! I think that’s a very honest question. We like to be “the captain of our fate,” as a poem by an otherwise obscure poet puts it. We want to feel like we are in control, when in actual fact we seldom if ever are. Our choices indeed matter a great deal, but for the most part we have no control over what happens to us. We are accountable for what we do with the opportunities and resources we are given, but the list of things over which we have no say, starting with our genetics, is limitless. Jesus told the very famous parable of the talents, (Matthew 25) as well as saying, “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.” (Luke 12:48) “Yielding things to God” is no excuse for being irresponsible. However, failing to recognize that God is ultimately in control is a recipe for burnout at least, and utter disaster at worst. In the Japanese, the last half of verse five says, “and He will get it done.” We are to recognize what God has given us and make full use of it, but we’ve got to remember that in the final analysis, everything good is done by Him; we are merely participants.

Once again the Lord has been very timely in these Scripture readings. That’s all the more amazing when I’m the one who draws up the list! This is just further evidence that He knows what will happen before the fact, because He sees all of time at a glance, and He knows what we need and when we need it. As I have written for the past couple of days, I am very tied up in my last official acts as I am retiring from 42 years of school teaching. This is yet another Word to encourage me to release everything to God, trusting that everything He has done through me will bear the fruit He intends at the proper time. I cannot say precisely what impact I have had on my thousands of students over these years, but God knows, and He has used and will use it to draw them toward Him. I am to delight myself in Him, as verse four so famously says, and express my love by full obedience, (John 14:15) leaving the results in His hands.

Father, thank You for this encouraging reminder. Thank You that things went smoothly through the day yesterday, even though I almost messed things up at one point and was needlessly irritable at another. Help me indeed rest, relax, and rejoice in You each moment of today, so that You may be fully glorified. Thank You. Praise God!