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Foreign. Friends of Jesus and friends of mine, also known as the Sower Nation. It's time for a new day. It's January 16th. It's Friday in the year of our Lord 2026. I'm John David Walt and this is your wake up call. You notice I'm trying to be a little more gentle. These, I'm trying to be less aggressive. And it's great to see you today. It's great to be with you, to share in these moments in the morning or whenever you're able to join me and meet with Jesus. That's what we're doing. This is not me up here teaching you something. This is us meeting with Jesus. He's leading us. He's guiding us. He's speaking into our lives and he's ordering our days. So I just consider it the great privilege of my life to get to do it with you. So thank you for joining me. Let's begin this morning with consecration. Are you ready? Wake up, sleeper. Rise from the dead and Christ will shine on you. Jesus, I belong to you. I lift up my heart to you. I set my mind on you. I fix my eyes on you. I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice. Jesus, we belong to you. And we're praying in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen. You know what Jesus, I think, says back to us in response to that prayer? He says, you name my name, I belong to you. And y', all, if we can walk out into this day belonging to him and knowing that he belongs to us, we already won and we're going to do great things. He's going to do great things through our lives with others. Well, today's entry is entitled On Planning and Plans and the Will of God. And our text is Proverbs, chapter 16. All day long, whole chapter, the verse. We're going to focus in on the first verse. Very clear, succinct, profound. You ready? Hear now the word of the Lord. Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans. The word of the Lord. Now consider this. Today we come to yet another critical dimension of wisdom, the relationship between faith and planning. Here it is. You ready? This is. I can bring it to this simplicity. I believe the text does trust God, make plans. Is it an either or, or, a both and approach? Some want to put an or between those two ideas. Trust God or make your own plans. I believe the wisdom of God instructs us to put an and between them. Trust God and make plans. How does this work? How can I know if my plans are in alignment with God's plans? The short answer is you can't know. You can only trust. We don't put our trust in our plans, nor do we trust that our plans are God's will. We trust God. Next we make plans. Then we trust God to establish our plans. Isn't that what today's feature text says? Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans. The text brings to mind another of my favorite passages in the Bible. It's in Psalm 37. First few verses here. Trust in the Lord and do good. Dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. That's verses 3 and 4 of Psalm 37. That might be a good word, a new word for the new year for some of you. When we place our trust in the Lord, he gifts us with the unseen hand of his wise governance. When we commit to the Lord, whatever we do, it brings us into the kind of relationship with God, that whereby we make our plans from a posture of wisdom. Think about it. In any relationship, the breakdown of trust creates anxiety. Anxiety leads to confusion and unwise planning. Trust, on the other hand, inspires mutual confidence and faith. This leads to good planning. Trusting God brings a quality of wisdom into our planning that changes the shape of our plans. You know, I should say my. I want to say our tendency. Maybe I could say my tendency is to make plans and then ask God to establish them. The key is to establish a trust in God and then make our plans. Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans. It makes sense, doesn't it? Pray, here's a simple prayer. Abba Father, I want to want your will over my plans. Grant me the grace to trust you more and then make my plans to reflect your will. And I pray in the name of Jesus. Amen. Our journal prompts. So why do we tend to err on one side of the other or the other of this trust God or make plans framework? And how might I begin with trust in God? Rather than launching into my own plans and asking God to trust my plans, what might it look like to trust boldly and then to plan confidently? I think that's what we're going for here today. Trust God, make plans. That's one of the texts that I've seen on the dash of. Of one of our good men of God here in Gillette. Psalm 16:1 that might be a good one for some of you for your new word for the new year. So, I mean, planning is good. Trusting God's better, Trusting God and then making plans. I think that sounds best. So we're going to sing here today. Seems like a fitting hymn. I alluded to it yesterday. It's called have Thine Own Way. This. This comes out of the. The Jeremiah text, you know, the potter and the clay. And it's interesting how that that text reminds us that the clay doesn't tell the potter what to make. The clay yields itself to the hands of the potter. This number 343 in our seedbed hymnal, Our Great Redeemer's Praise. Have Thine Own Way. Four verses. You ready?
