By Todd Paetznick, January 25, 2024

Continuing backward through this familiar passage from the book of Proverbs, the third line reads, “In all your ways acknowledge Him.”  What purpose is behind acknowledging God in the achievement of straight paths?  Last week, we explored the three wills of God: commands, permissive, and sovereign.   Our acknowledgment of God aligns our will with His, not vice versa.  Straight paths are the desired outcome for companies and our personal lives; they represent what is optimal and most efficient.  Acknowledgment of God in all our ways teaches us to be submissive to His sovereign will.  We may not like the idea of being submissive to anything, but it is what it means to be a God-follower.  

As business people, we sometimes encounter an error concerning our understanding of God’s will, which James, the half-brother of Jesus, addresses.  

“Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.” Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. For you are [just] a vapor that appears for a little while, and then vanishes away. Instead, [you ought] to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.” But as it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil. So for one who knows [the] right thing to do and does not do it, for him it is sin” (James 4:13-17 NASB20).

James is not teaching that “If the Lord wills” are magic words to ensure the success of our plans.  Rather, the phrase is the attitude we are to have.  The attitude accepts that God manages circumstances for our best interests and those of His kingdom as a part of His sovereign plan.  James teaches that God’s invisible hand is active in our success or what may seem like failure.  When we succeed, we acknowledge it is God’s will; this is easy.  If we fail, we must also acknowledge that it is God’s will, but this acknowledgment is more difficult.  Failure does not necessarily mean we did something wrong, but it may mean there is something bigger or better at work that God is not revealing to us.  If we knew everything that would happen in the future, there would be no need for faith.  As it is, faith is a cornerstone of Christianity.  Faith represents actions we take that are the right things to do despite not knowing the outcome.  We trust that God knows the future and He is actively working in our lives.  

The knowledge of the future belongs to God alone.  There have been times in my life when I thought something would have been the best thing that could have happened.  When it did not happen, I felt hurt and confused.  Certainly, I thought, this would be God’s will.  Only by looking backward across time have I been able to see that I was being protected from a circumstance I could not have controlled.  Whether it was some large piece of business that did not close, I did not get the job I wanted, or the promotion I thought I deserved did not happen, I did not fully understand why.  Did I not pray hard enough?  Was I too focused on my desires that I missed what is good and right according to God?  Only later could I see that a perfect job would have been a disaster when I later learned that the company went out of business.  Or the position I thought I was a perfect fit was eliminated.  God protected me, but I did not know it at the time.  Despite disappointment in seeming failure, my faith and trust in God increased.

The acknowledgment of God and His sovereignty is not for His benefit; it is for ours.