June 15, 2025 | Plans and Providence

Plans and Providence | Proverbs Part 16

Proverbs 16:1–9

The plans of the heart belong to man,
    but the answer of the tongue is from the LORD.
All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes,
    but the LORD weighs the spirit.
Commit your work to the LORD,
    and your plans will be established.
The LORD has made everything for its purpose,
    even the wicked for the day of trouble.
Everyone who is arrogant in heart is an abomination to the LORD;
    be assured, he will not go unpunished.
By steadfast love and faithfulness iniquity is atoned for,
    and by the fear of the LORD one turns away from evil.
When a man’s ways please the LORD,
    he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.
Better is a little with righteousness
    than great revenues with injustice.
The heart of man plans his way,
    but the LORD establishes his steps. (ESV)

In this sermon titled Plans and Providence, Jed Gillis explores Proverbs 16:1–9 and emphasizes the tension and comfort found in the relationship between human planning and God’s providence. We are natural planners, made in God’s image to think, dream, and set goals. But while we initiate plans from our hearts, it is the Lord who ultimately shapes our desires, directs our steps, and determines the outcomes.

The sermon highlights four key components of planning: the heart (our core motivations), the plans (our goals), the work (our actions to achieve them), and the outcomes (which God controls). Gillis urges listeners to make plans not out of obsession with results but rooted in wisdom, humility, and community. Wise planning does not demand certainty about outcomes. It trusts in God’s character.

Even when plans fail or detours arise, believers can rest in God’s steadfast love and faithfulness. This is not a vague comfort, but a deeply rooted truth displayed most powerfully in Jesus, who endured what looked like a detour in the cross, only to rise again in victory. Because of Christ’s atonement, we can trust that God is for us, even when we are flawed. The call is to walk in wisdom, trust God with the results, and know that it is never too late to turn back toward him.

Transcript of Plans and Providence | Proverbs Part 16

We're gonna continue in Proverbs. We'll mainly be in Proverbs chapter 16 today. Children, if you're headed out the door to Children's Church, you're welcome to go. We're also glad to have you here with us as well.

Imagine with me that you're traveling down the path of your life and suddenly you come to the moment of decision. You see two doors before you behind one, there's everything you want. Peace, joy, success.

Behind the other foolish ruin and regret. You don't get to peek behind the door. You don't have any evidence. They look the same. You have one decision, one chance. Be wise or be foolish. Better not miss.

The pressure sounds a little extreme, doesn't it? If we really thought that was the way life worked, I don't know about you. I think I would just hide in my room and try not to do anything. It would be paralyzing, but here's God's gentle relief for us as people walking along the path of wisdom. God's gentle relief for finite people is that wisdom isn't like that.

It's not like you're walking along and you come to this high stakes choice, one chance, joy, or ruin. Now, wisdom is portrayed throughout the Book of Proverbs as a pathway. It's portrayed that you walk through life and you make turns here and there. And the good news, the relief for us is that you can always turn towards wisdom. Even if you took a foolish step or 30 this past week, or 300, even if you took a foolish step this morning, even if you take a foolish step while you sit here, you can always turn back towards wisdom.

That's the message of Proverbs. It's calling you. It's saying, I'm here. Will you listen? Will you listen? Will you listen?

Of course the pathway of wisdom may be more difficult because of previous foolish choices. That's true. But the door to wisdom never slams shut. You can always, as long as you are still breathing, there is a way forward to walk back towards wisdom. There are people in this room that if you heard their testimony, they would tell you about all the foolish choices that they made in their lives, and they would tell you about how they did that for decades, and then they would tell you how God transformed them, so that instead of walking down that path of foolish ruin, they turned back towards wisdom. That's because that is what God calls us to.

Now, of course, and I would say to teens and kids in this room, it's easier if you start choosing wisdom at the beginning. And every one of those people with that testimony would say the same thing. I wish I had turned towards wisdom sooner. But wherever you are in the path of your life, you can turn towards wisdom. We have that opportunity as we hear God's word today.

How Do We Pursue Wisdom?

So how do we pursue wisdom and specifically wanna look at at one idea today, and that is the goals or the plans that we make. What do we need to know about plans and God's providence? What do we need to know about goals and God's sovereignty? How do we need to think about those things so that instead of turning towards foolishness and continuing, we turn back towards wisdom?

I wanna read Proverbs 16 beginning in verse one. The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the spirit.

Commit your work to the Lord and your plans will be established. The Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble. Everyone who is arrogant in heart is an abomination to the Lord. Be assured he will not go unpunished. By steadfast love and faithfulness, iniquity is atoned for and by the fear of the Lord, one turns away from evil.

When a man's ways please the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him. Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues with injustice. The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.

This is God's wisdom from Proverbs 16 for us today.

Humans Are Planners

First thing we wanna notice is that humans are planners. Even those of you who say, I don't like to plan, I like to be spontaneous, you like to plan to be spontaneous too. It's okay. We all set goals. We all have desires. Some of us are more organized about them. Some of us are less organized about them, but we have plans. We have goals. We think, I want to accomplish this. I want to do this with my day off. I want to do this with my vacation. We just do it.

We're made that way, and we see this in, in verse one. The plans of the heart belong to man. That's something humans do. We plan. We see it in verse nine. The heart of man plans his way. It's just something that we do. You were made to think ahead, to desire, to create, to plan. You, reflect your father, you reflect God. God is not chaotic. He's not sitting in heaven just winging it today. He never is. He's a planner. He thinks we could say he dreams.

That might sound weird 'cause we think if I dream, I don't know if it'll happen. He imagines go watch some National Geographic documentaries and see what your God has imagined. It's amazing. That's who God is, and we reflect him. We are made to do this. We're made to plan. We're made to think, we're made to dream, we're made to build. We're made to have goals. Humans do that.

That might seem obvious, but I think it's important when we talk about plans and God's providence to realize that the answer, if we say. God's gonna work out what's good. He's gonna do all these things. I guess I just shouldn't plan or have any goals. Like you can't. We do plan. We were made for that. We reflect our, our Father God in that way.

And I wanna say to Fathers on Father's Day, we have a role to reflect that in maybe an even greater way. In the sense that we will often say, as men, your job as a father will say, it's something like to have the primary responsibility to protect and provide.

We could debate and add words to it, but just take those two words for a minute. Protect and provide. It's interesting that the, the root of those words, they both have pro at the beginning, right? Protect literally means in front or before to cover. Provide literally means in front of or before to see something.

So the two words we might put as the primary role for fathers involve looking ahead to see dangers and protect, and looking ahead to see opportunities and guide. To see needs and provide for them. To see desires, to see gifts, and encourage in them. You can't do that without some form of planning of looking ahead.

Fathers, you are called to have initiative, to be planners. You can be spontaneous too at times, but to look ahead and say, now how can I do this in such a way that it is good for my wife and my children? And when you do that, you are reflecting your father, the master planner, the perfect protector, the perfect provider.

The Heart of our Plans

Humans are planners. So I want to talk about four words there. Most of them are used exactly this way, or he talks about the idea, but four words that represent concepts we need to know to think. How does Proverbs talk about plans? The first word is the heart. We saw it in verse one and in verse nine, the heart plans his way.

Plans of the heart. So the heart it in scripture, it's the center or the core of who you are. It's like the central causing peace. It has to do with what you love. It has to do with what you think. It has to do with what you feel, but it's the core of what causes you to do something. It's your heart. So the heart plans.

You notice, he doesn't say you plan everything about your heart. It doesn't work like that. He says, the main thing that you do, the main thing that you do is based on where your heart is, you make plans.

That doesn't mean you can't impact your heart. How do we impact our hearts? Well, we do it primarily by our attention. What do you pay attention to if, if you decided I want to be the kind of person who loves fine art. I love paintings. If you decide you wanna be that kind of person, none of you has a switch. You can't just go, oh, I love it. My heart's completely changed. If you think art is boring, you do not have a switch to suddenly go. It's fantastic. We can't do that, can we?

But what you could do, you could say, all right, a lot of people think that art is wonderful. I may think they're crazy, but a lot of 'em think it's wonderful. So what do you do? You direct your attention. In our current world, you might go watch some YouTube videos where people describe, here's why this work of art is wonderful. You might go to art galleries. You direct your attention, and if your desire is to be someone who loves art, you direct your attention there, hoping that as you're exposed to it and you learn more about it, that changes something inside you.

So when I say you don't plan your heart, I don't mean you can't influence it. I mean that it's not ultimately you who is sovereign over your heart. In fact, Proverbs talks about that. It says the heart of the king is in the Lord's hands. He directs it where he wants to. So you plan your heart plans, but God is the one who ultimately transforms and changes your heart however you pay attention.

Which if you remember going back to the beginning of Proverbs, what does he say over and over? Look, listen, be attentive to my words. Treasure these things up. He says, pay attention. That's the route. That's how you can, you trust that God is going to work in your heart through that attention, so that your heart is what it should be when you make plans.

So your heart is number one.

The Goals of Our Plans

The second thing, I'll use the word plans. You could use the word goals. Your heart at your core, you make plans. It's a reflection of your desires. I want this to happen. We saw that in verse one. We saw that in verse three. Commit your work to the Lord and your plans will be established. We see it down in verse nine.

The Work Towards Our Goals

The third thing is he refers to your ways or your work. So this is not your plans. It's what you do in order to try to pursue your plans. You have a heart from that comes desires, and then you do something to try to work towards the desires. That's work or ways we saw it in verse three.

Notice the connection. Commit your work, your daily pursuit of the plans you have. Commit your work to the Lord and your plans, your desires, hopefully for good will be established. Or in verse seven. Notice the way he uses this. When a man's ways, please the Lord. He doesn't say plans. There he is talking about something a little bit different when a man's ways, when the things you do to actually pursue your plans when those please the Lord.

The Results of Our Work

And then the last word I'm gonna use is, I'll call it outcomes. You could say the result. Notice in verse nine. He says, the heart of man plans his way, right? So there's three of our terms, right? The heart, the core desires. Here's the goal. Now here's what I'm going to do. He plans his way. Here's what I'm gonna actually take step forward in, but what's the result and how does that result happen?

Last part of verse nine, the Lord establishes his steps. That's the pattern over and over in Proverbs, and as we keep going, we'll see how it connects with our attitude towards God and his providence. We need all four steps. The heart makes plans, we act on it. God establishes the outcomes. That's the pattern.

God May Change Your Plans

But as we plan, we need to know some significant limitations to our plans. Probably you could come up with these on your own. But God's already told us these limitations. Verse one, the plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord. Have you ever made plans and changed them?

Of course you have. You make plans and you go into a conversation, planning to say something, and you get done and you think, I, I didn't say anything like what I meant to be saying. Say the words that come are not always fitting with our plans. Our plans change. That's okay. Now you might think, wait, if there, but if the answer of the tongue is from the Lord, does that mean whatever I happen to say is right? Well, what's the point of planning it all then?

Well, verse two. All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes. You might think it makes sense, but the Lord weighs the spirit. Not all of our actions are what they ought to be. But he points us to this limitation that says you make plans and sometimes God changes those plans.

We're grateful for that, at least sometimes. When we can see that he changed our plans to save us from danger, we're grateful. When, when all we see is he changed our plans and we don't see the protection. We might be a little more irritated. But he might have protected us just as much at that moment than the one we could see.

God Knows Your Heart

So we need to know our plans have limits, they change. We need to know that you don't plan everything about you. I mentioned it earlier, but I'll read it again in Proverbs 21 verse one. The king, even the one who has all the power in the monarchy, the king's heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord. He turns it wherever he will.

Your heart makes plans, but God knows everything about your heart. The deepest currents of who you are are not a surprise to God. They're not hidden from God. The deepest parts that shape you, even when they're hidden from you, which is more often than we'd like to admit. Even when they're hidden from you, the deepest parts that shape you are not hidden from God.

So your plans shape, your ways, your heart shapes your plans. God shapes your heart.

Now this should be, I used the word earlier relief. It should be soothing to us and I'll, I'll explain why. Imagine every time you made any plans, I've talked with people who felt like this. Every time you plan and say, I would like to do something that I is, is good. Now you have to go and question all your motives because probably there's something wrong in your heart.

Wouldn't that be exhausting? Or you say, I know this is a good plan. It's a good thing to plan. Now here's how I'm gonna actually live it out. Here's my ways. Isn't it exhausting if you have to go back and say, but probably somewhere in my heart there's something wrong here that I just don't know about. I've gotta go find it. You don't have to do that because your father who walks with you is the one who shapes your heart.

You say, this seems like a good plan and I want to pursue it. And trust your father shaped your heart in the first place. And if there's something that you need to deal with, you say, God, is there anything in my heart, anything that's sinful in this motive?

And if he doesn't convict you of that, move ahead with the plan for what's good. It should be relief. You don't have to be God. We all, we, when I say it that way, we like, oh, well of course. You don't have to know the deepest currents of your heart in order to do something that truly pleases your father in heaven.

He shapes that, trust him.

How Should We Make Plans?

So how should humans plan then say, okay, we need to, we need to make plans. I get that. How do I do it? What are the cautions? What are the things we need?

Make Plans With Wisdom, Not Outcomes Obsession

If you turn over to chapter 17 in verse 24, first thing is we need to make plans with wisdom, not with outcome obsession. I like that terminology because so many times we are obsessed with the outcome. We say, I need to know if this is a good decision, and what we actually mean is I need to know what brings about the outcome I want. That's not necessary for wisdom.

Verse 24, the discerning sets his face towards wisdom, but the eyes of a fool are on the ends of the earth. The discerning says, what's the wise thing for me to do? The eyes of the fool says, well, if I do this and this and this and this and this, then I'll get the outcome I want.

We hear this, people say, you need to want to change the world. And they're say, if you wanna change the world, you need to make your bed.

There's wisdom in that. There's wisdom in it, because what he's doing is saying, look at the situation right here. Make a wise choice. Now, don't worry about all the ramifications of that. You can't figure out all those anyway, so pursue wisdom here.

Think about, think about two categories of the way you can make decisions. You can make it in a way that's based on wisdom. We call it wisdom based decision making looks at the patterns of God's world and says, how can I live in a way that fits with those patterns so that my life could flourish? That's what we do. That's wisdom based decision making.

Other hand, which is easy for all of us, is outcome-based decision making, which says, here's the outcome I want to happen. Alright? Now I'm gonna try to achieve that no matter what.

That's where we get word phrases like the ends justify the means. We've already selected the outcome. Now what's the means to get there?

Now we're rarely, rarely, a hundred percent wisdom based. If you're thinking, I wanna pursue wisdom, you are thinking a little about how is this gonna turn out? Sure, I understand there's a little of that, but we certainly can't be a hundred percent outcome based.

Think about the life of people described in scripture. If you just think the end of the book of Hebrews. He talks about a lot of really bad earthly outcomes that happen to those people, and yet their faith was absolutely wise.

You can't measure it based on outcomes. For example, if a farmer or a gardener says, I really want to grow tomato plants, that's your goal. Well, what do you do? You, you prepare the ground, you get seeds or plants. You plant them, you water them, you do everything that you're supposed to do. Alright?

Now if right before those tomatoes get ripe, they're just starting to look wonderfully red, you know, one more day and either a storm comes and wipes 'em out, or animals come and eat them, or your decisions to plant all those things, were they wise? Say, but I didn't eat the tomato. Does that make it foolish? No.

You see, you can't only look at the outcome and decide if it was a wise choice. Have you ever made a choice that, looking back you thought that was a foolish way to spend money, but it actually worked out? It happens. You hear some of these stories of investment where you go, that looked really foolish at the time, but it worked.

You see, we can't measure based on outcomes or will just become pragmatic. Just did it work. God doesn't call you to know the outcomes of your choices.

This should be relief. If you feel like you have to know the outcome, you will feel a pressure on you that you were never meant to hold. God holds it. It frees you. That means when something didn't work out the way you wanted it to, you don't have to conclude it was foolish.

It might have been foolish, okay? We all make foolish decisions that's possible, but just because it didn't work out the way you wanted to doesn't mean that it was in fact foolish. That's why one of the most practical things we can do is pray about our plans.

Don't just pray about the outcome of your plans. Don't just pray for the result you want. Pray about the plan. Pray that God will shape you in your heart with wisdom. God, you know, the currents of my heart. I don't know all of those currents. Would you shape 'em and turn those currents wherever they need to be so that I act in wisdom today?

Pray for clarity to say, God, I'm, I'm gonna set plans 'cause I'm made in your image. So help me to set the right ones. Help me to have the right desires. Pray for help to choose the right paths, the right ways to pursue the plans. Pray for God's good, wise sovereignty to guide all the outcomes and to keep you and guard you even if the outcome isn't what you want.

As finite humans, we need our decisions to be covered in prayer or we will always be trying to take God's place and either. Shape our heart in a way we can't do it or know with certainty and govern the outcomes. Our decisions must be bathed in prayer.

So make your plans with wisdom, but not outcome obsession.

Make Plans With Humility

Second related, make your plans with humility. Set your goals with humility. Proverbs 27. Verse one says, do not boast about tomorrow for you. Do not know what a day may bring. This is picked up in the New Testament and quoted. Don't think that you can control or know the outcomes with certainty.

You don't know what tomorrow brings. You can make the wisest investments and you don't know how they'll turn out, not for sure. You can try to build this relationship and you don't really know how it'll turn out, not with divine certainty. And to think you can control it. It's, it's pride, really.

The Book of Proverbs, and one of the things to separate plans from pride, the book of Proverbs is not anti plans, it's anti pride.

Chapter 21. We see this again, verse 30. No wisdom, no understanding, no counsel can avail against the Lord. The horse is made ready for the day of battle, but the victory belongs to the Lord.

No matter what plans are there, any plans made against God will not ultimately succeed. It doesn't matter how many resources they have. Aren't you glad? We live in a world where people around us make all kinds of plans against God. Psalm two says, the king sitting on his throne laughs at those plans. No plan will succeed against God.

Humility drives us to say, you don't know what's coming. You don't know the outcomes. But that's not a threat if we're honest. When I stop and think, I don't know how it all work out. It feels a little like a threat, doesn't it? It's not a threat. It's actually a gentle reminder that you are not God. And that is a relief.

And prayer reminds us of this humility. It reminds us because it reminds me of my need and of God's sufficiency.

Make Plans With Others

So we plan with wisdom. We plan with humility, we plan with others. I talked about this a few weeks ago from chapter 15. It says, without counsel, plans fail. With many advisors, they succeed. So we need other perspectives because our perspective is not perfect. But if you look at chapter 20, I wanna take that a step further.

Not only do you need advisors, but 20 verse five says, the purpose in a man's heart is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out. You won't really know yourself without true friendship. You make your plans in a context of relationships, of friends who can help you to say, here's what I hear going on in your heart.

They're not God. They don't know perfectly, but they might have a different perspective than you do. You make your plans with others. We get this so backwards in our individualistic world. We wanna make all our plans by ourself so that we just stand on our own two feet. No, make your plans with others. Say this verse says, without people of understanding around you, you'll struggle to find the purpose in your own heart.

Make your plans with others, teens or or college students. As you start to look at what job do I pursue? Where do I go to school? Talk to others about that, and don't just talk to 'em about what's a good job, say, what do you see in me? Like, what do I need to know about myself? Help me see my character, help me see my heart. Because a man of understanding helps draw these things out. It's like deep water. You won't really know yourself without true friendship.

So in case you haven't picked up the connection, I'm gonna go back to prayer. Pray with others too. We don't just pray by ourselves, we pray with others. And one of the things I love about Berean is that there are many opportunities for small groups of prayer. Tuesday morning, Wednesday morning, Thursday, Wednesday night, there's care groups. There's a ton of opportunities to pray with other people. I want to encourage you to take advantage of some of those.

If you wanna know more about them, talk to us. We'd be glad to let you know. If you want to start your own and get some people to pray together, great. We need to pray with one another. We need to be plugged in with one another. In that way.

How Do We Know God is For Us in Our Plans?

Turn back to chapter 16. We recognize that our hearts make plans. We pursue ways on basis of those plans. We try to bring them about, God, establishes the outcome. We say, okay, I've got that. Now. I need to make sure that my plans are pursued with wisdom, not outcome. Obsession with humility and with others. The question that then lands for me is this.

How do I know that God is for me in my plans? Like, great, I've got all those plans. How do I know God's for me? What if I make all these plans and they feel good? And then God just kind of goes, ha, no. Is that the way he works? And in fact, I'm sinful. So there's plenty of times God could look at me and not just say, huh, and move it away, but say, actually you're acting in pri pride here.

So how do I know if God is for me? I make plans. What if there are wicked people who stand in my way? Well, let's look at verse four, chapter 16. The Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble. Everyone who is arrogant in heart is an abomination to the Lord.

Of course, there will be wicked people, but the master planner knows that. He's always known that he can establish your plans for good despite all the wickedness in the world.

And in fact, verse seven says, he can make your enemies to be at peace with you.

What Are The Detours to Our Plans?

What if there are detours along the way? Well, there probably will be, but look at verse eight. Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues with injustice. What if there are detours? Well, you may plan for prosperity. You may plan for great blessing and finances, and yet God detours you from that.

Did God fail you? Was God against you? No. God said there's something better than prosperity. There's something better than wealth.

Sometimes the detours we feel when we say, I'm headed this way and God puts this roadblock and now we've gotta go this direction. Sometimes they, they aren't God's opposition. They're God reminding you there's something better than the things you were looking at.

So what if I am the wicked person? I mean, he says here, he's made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble. The arrogant and heart is an abomination to the Lord. And you sit here and say, I'm arrogant sometimes. Does that mean God, God's against me? You know, all this great comfort, all this great. You don't have to be God, but you get down to it. And he thwarts the plans of the wicked anyway, and I sin, so therefore, none of this relief means anything for me.

That's why I'm so glad verse six is there. By steadfast love and faithfulness. Iniquity is atoned for. This is the solution to sin. I went, I looked and said, well, what, where else in scripture are those words used?

The same way they're used here, steadfast love and faithfulness. One of them is from Genesis 24, and it's Abraham's servant saying, if you are going to show steadfast love and faithfulness to my master, then do this. That's the only reference in the Old Testament. Uses these two words to refer to a human showing steadfast love and faithfulness to another human.

Every other time, it's God showing steadfast love and faithfulness to us. He is not telling you the wicked will be punished, but if you come up with enough steadfast love and faithfulness, your sin can be atoned for. No, here's how the Old Testament uses this in Exodus 34. The Lord a God, merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

Second Samuel two. Now, may the Lord show steadfast love and faithfulness to you. Second Samuel 15. May the Lord show steadfast love and faithfulness to you. Psalm 25, all the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness. Psalm 61, appoint steadfast love and faithfulness to watch over your king. Psalm 85, in God, steadfast love and faithfulness meet. Psalm 86, but you oh Lord, are a God, merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Psalm 89, righteousness and justice are God's throne, steadfast love and faithfulness go before him. Psalm 98, he has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness to the House of Israel, and that clearly wasn't because they were so great. Proverbs three, three, let not steadfast love and faithfulness forsake you. Proverbs 14, do they not go astray? Who devise evil? Those who devise or plan good, meet steadfast love and faithfulness. And here, chapter 16, by steadfast love and faithfulness, iniquity is atoned for.

This is our confidence that God is for us in our plans, that Jesus knew the steadfast love and faithfulness of his father, and he wisely walked in that for his entire earthly life. Yet it seemed like he faced an incredible detour. Was that opposition? No. That wasn't opposition. In fact, it was the perfect plan made by the father, son and the spirit from eternity past before anything else was made. So for three days, it looked like the outcome was entirely the wrong one, and yet Jesus rose from the grave. And the perfect plan of God to stunningly shower his steadfast love and faithfulness on us was accomplished. Sin was atoned for.

Will You Trust God With Your Plans?

Will you trust him with your plans?

If that's what he did for us, we can know He's for us. Those who devise good, those who plan good will meet steadfast love and faithfulness.

This is the pattern of Proverbs. God shapes your heart. Do you trust him enough for that? We read earlier, trust in the Lord with all your heart. Do you trust God enough to say God shape the inner current of who I am at the deepest level that you need to. Shape it. I trust you.

God shapes our hearts. We plan. Do you trust him in your plans? When you think, I want it to work out this way, here's what I'm going to pursue. Do you trust him in that?

We step out and pursue those plans. Sometimes I think we, we trust him enough to say, I really want this to happen, but when it comes to actually stepping out and trying to pursue it, we hesitate. Do you trust him enough to step out, pursue the plans for good that he has put in your heart?

Proverbs 16 says. The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps. Trust him with the outcomes.

God delights to lead those who trust in his steadfast love and faithfulness. He delights in it. He loves it. Will you trust your plans and your ways, and your outcomes enough to take the next step of wisdom that he puts in front of you because it is never too late. Even when you've taken foolish steps, it is never too late to turn back towards wisdom.

As long as you have breath, you can turn back to the God who has steadfast love and faithfulness. You can rest in his steadfast love and faithfulness for you. Will you trust him for the next step? I invite you to close your eyes and just respond to our father, and then I'll pray and we'll close.