Keller on guidance and trusting God

 From this Tim Keller sermon.

Proverbs 16:3 - “Commit your deeds to the Lord, and your plans will succeed."

The word commit is a word that literally means "to roll over onto--to put all your weight on". And this is saying, unconditionally trust God for all things that happen in your life. Unconditionally trust God. Radically, unconditionally trust God and you slowly will become a person who makes wise plans--plans in accord with reality. Plans in accord with who God is, who you are, human nature, things. [...]

Why do I call this paying the price? I don't mean paying the price earns guidance. I'm saying paying the price receives guidance. Why do I call it paying the price? Elisabeth Elliot in a book she wrote years ago on guidance puts it like this:

"The more we pay for advice, the more we are likely to listen to it. Advice from a friend, which is free, we may take or leave. Advice from a consultant we have paid much for personally, we are more likely to accept, but it's still our choice--we can take it or leave it. But the guidance of God is different. First of all, we do not come to God asking for advice, but for God's will--and that is not optional. And, God's fee is the highest one of all: it costs everything. To ask for the guidance of God requires abandonment. We no longer say, 'If I trust you, you will give me such and such.' Instead we must say, 'I trust you. Give me, or withhold from me whatever you choose.' As John Newton says, 'What you will, when you will, how you will.'

See, she says, finding God's will is not coming to God and saying 'If I trust you, you will do such and such.' That's the way we read the proverb before we thought about it. She says, no, if you want guidance, you come to God and say 'I trust you. Give me or not give me whatever you choose.'

What does it mean to unconditionally trust God for everything in your life? I think it means, to say, "Lord, from this moment on, I will obey anything you tell me, whether I understand it or not. And I will accept anything you send me whether I understand it or not. But I'm not gonna bail on you no matter what." and the Bible is saying, only if you go through you life like that, (not bailing on God, obeying unconditionally, trusting unconditionally, committing everything) as time goes on, both your good times and your bad times will turn you into the kind of person whose plans are wise.

[...]

"Nobody has ever learned they were a sinner by being told. No one has ever learned about their flaws by being told. You have to be shown. You have to be shown. You're mother's been telling you about your flaws for years, but you've got to be shown. And, until you see your flaws via experience, they're going to control your life. And secondly, no one ever learned that God loved them by being told. You know, I tell you every week, and you go home and say 'well, the preacher told me that I'm loved. I believe it.' No you don't. No you don't. You wouldn't live the way you do if you believed that. You know what you need in order to really know? You have to be shown. Over and over and over as life goes on, you have to be in positions where you are absolutely sure God has abandoned you and then find out later on that you were wrong.

That has to happen over and over and over and over. You can't bail. You have to commit everything to him. But as time goes on, you will find that you are finally becoming wise. You're understanding for the first time your flaws and then your plans are more careful than they would be otherwise. And secondly, you're learning that God loves you, and therefore, your plans are more bold than they would be otherwise. And therefore, by paying this price, by committing everything to him, by then saturating yourself in his Word, so that you not only see the solid lines to your decisions, but also the dotted lines. (I mean, there a lot of things that are biblically, technically okay, but you can see inferences out of biblical principles.) The more you saturate yourself, and seek to do what this verse says--Commit your entire life to him--unconditional trust, you will become, more and more, a wise person.