"Rollaway"

"Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass" (Psalm 37:5).

The Hebrew root word of "commit" in this passage means to roll something away from one's self. We are thus commanded to roll away, or separate our way from ourselves in the sense that it is not actually our way. "Ye are not your own" (I Corinthians 6:19).

"None of us liveth unto himself, and no man dieth to himself. For whether we live, we live unto the Lord, and whether we die, we die unto the Lord" (Romans 14:7-8).

The context of every moment of our lives is God. Of believer and unbeliever alike, the Apostle Paul wrote, "In Him, we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28) All that we do is with the "life, breath, and all things" that He provides (Acts 17:25). We either use it well, or we we misuse it, but all is done with our Creator as the center and circumference of all things. Committing our way unto our Lord therefore involves our recognition of reality, and of the truth from which we can never escape.

Whither shall I go from Thy Spirit? Or whither shall I flee from Thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, Thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from Thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to Thee" (Psalm 139:7-12).

David wrote these words as a believer, and as one who knew not only the universal presence of God, but also His leading and holding. The unbeliever lives also in a creation that is "full of His glory," but he does not know the Lord's direction and keeping (Isaiah 6:3). He rejects such Divine involvement, but again, he does not and cannot avoid the fact that God is the great fact of His existence. Believers also sometimes ignore or turn away from the teeming pervasiveness of our Lord in His creation and in our lives, but nothing changes the truth. The great significance of every circumstance, condition, contingency, and situation is the God who originated and sustains our existence, and to whom all that we do is directed. "We live unto the Lord..."

Our spiritual sensibilities are presently too limited to consciously know more than a modicum of the great fact and the great significance. However, we must embrace it as a matter of vital doctrinal principle, and we must recognize that committing our way to the Lord is simply opening our eyes to "the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world" (John 1:9). We are as fish that swim in the ocean that is God, and the more we know and believe the truth, the more our being will be illuminated for both our benefit and the blessing of others. Yes, the Lord Jesus Christ has delivered born again believers from the cruel slavery of believing that we can make our own way in a universe where only One Creator exists. We therefore "commit" our way to Him. We roll away our lives from ourselves with great confidence and determination to the God who will faithfully bring to pass the fulfillment of His glory, His will, and His blessed reality in us.

"We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them."

(Ephesians 2:10)