Yesterday we looked at the fact that to “commit our way to the Lord,” we best accomplish this when we fallow the instruction of Romans 12 in surrendering all the we are, body, soul, and spirit; life, limb, and faculties, to God for His use. In so doing, we come into unity with God, who then is able to direct our paths and use our every gift, talent, ability, strength, weakness, power and authority, putting all that He is and His power into the mix to accomplish His purposes. Today we look again at the same passage in Psalm 37:

“Commit your WAY to the Lord, Trust also in Him, and He will do it. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light and your judgment as the noonday” (vs. 5-6).

Commit your way. God keeps bringing a thought to mind with this word, “way”, from another passage in which He showed me something long ago that I find interesting, and that fits our focus here. Turn with me to Exodus 33:

In Exodus 33, God is dealing with His wayward people: people He not only delivered from the hands of Egypt, but He brought them out with the bounty of Egypt’s wealth: gold jewelry, gold décor and utensils, jewels galore of every kind. Even still, when Moses was long on the mountain of God, the people decided he must be dead or never planning to return, so they chose to make a new god out of the golden bounty God caused their enemy to hand over to their possession, so they worshipped before a golden calf and did unspeakable things in honoring it over the One True God who loved and saved them, sinning against their God.

Now we need to realize something here: it did not take the forty days that Moses was on the mountain with God for them to become convinced he was never returning. It took time to prepare for melting the gold down; time to make the mold; and time for that graven image to cool so they could bow before it. We too easily give up on God when He is about to bless us beyond measure.

At the beginning of chapter 33, as part of their punishment, God told them to take the jewels from their ears as reminder of their sin. Then He told Moses the unthinkable: that Moses was to lead the people in to possess the land of Promise, but He would not accompany such an obstinate people. He would send an angel in with them, but He, Himself, would not be going with them.

This put Moses on His knees before the Lord, and Joshua with him. After leaving the tent of meeting, Joshua still on his knees before God, Moses told the Lord:

“‘See, You say to me, “Bring up this people!” But You Yourself have not let me know whom You will send with me. Moreover, You have said, “I have known you by name, and you have also found favor in My sight.” Now therefore, I pray You, if I have found favor in Your sight, let me KNOW YOUR WAYS THAT I MAY KNOW YOU, so that I may find favor in Your sight. Consider too, that this nation is Your people.’ And He said, ‘My presence shall go with you, and I will give you rest.’

“Then he said to Him, ‘If Your presence does not go with us, do not lead us up from here. For how then can it be known that I have found favor in Your sight, I and Your people? Is it not by Your going with us, so that we, I and Your people, may be distinguished from all the other people who are upon the face of the earth?’

“The Lord said to Moses, ‘I will also do this thing of which you have spoken; for you have found favor in My sight and I have known you by name.’”

How did Moses say that he could come to know God? By knowing His ways. And what did He say would distinguish them from other people? The presence of God with them.

My husband knows me so well, it amazes me. He is seldom surprised by how my day has gone, because he knows me, how I function, how I think, the things that wear me down, and how to build me up. He knows my ways, therefore he knows and understands me better than any other human on earth.

My closest friends that stand by me through thick and thin are those who know my ways. And we know God best when we learn His ways. Why is that? Because God is as He does as He is. There is no hypocrisy in God. Who He is dictates His thoughts, His actions and His person.

I believe that when God says for us to commit our way to Him, He is saying for us to trust Him enough to be real with Him. And not only trust Him enough to be real with Him, but also to trust Him enough to commit our ways of being and doing to Him for His transforming power.

He wants more than just a Master to slave relationship. He wants the love relationship of Beloved Master to bondslave. He wants more than just the Beloved Master to bondslave relationship. He wants a Father to child relationship. He wants more than a Father to child relationship. He wants the intimacy of Ishi (My Husband) to wife relationship (Hosea 2:16). He wants more than the Husband and wife relationship we picture from our limited experience of it with our mates or our parents’ marriage. He wants the Two to become One Flesh with Him in Christ.

God wants to transform us to the design intended from the beginning. We were intended to walk in His image, having a relationship of unity with Him. Committing our way to Him means trusting Him as we are, while also knowing that He will lovingly transform us to better than we could ever dream, and in that transformation process, He wants to bring us to greater intimacy with Him than we ever deemed possible.

What a beautiful picture, to so know God’s ways, all that He is, that we call Him by name with intimacy. And to be so known by God that He calls us by name in an intimate love relationship that makes us one with Him.

“Commit your WAY to the Lord, Trust also in Him, and He will do it. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light and your judgment as the noonday” (vs. 5-6).