Many are the thoughts in a man's heart, but the counsel of Jehovah, that doth stand.
Proverbs 19 collects short sayings about work, discipline and the fear of the Lord, and near the end it sets many human plans against one counsel that stands. The question it forces is not whether we may plan, but whose plan will still be standing at the end.
Many thoughts, one counsel
The first half of the verse describes a mind full of ideas. The second half sets one counsel against all of them, and a writer here reads that contrast as the difference between confusion and firm ground.
A man may be rich in ideas and plans, but outside God's teaching his thoughts are only confusion. "Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the purpose of the LORD that will stand." (The older translation used here reads "the counsel of Jehovah.") This counsel is what makes a person wise. Anyone who learns it and holds to it is settled and happy.
Experience proves it
The verse is not abstract. Anyone who has watched a plan collapse has met its truth. The answer is to shape our plans by something steadier.
We all know by experience that our plans are too often brought to nothing; but the counsel of the Lord will always stand. How important, then, that we get to know His reliable Word, so that our plans line up with His will.
Planning with God left out
Planning is not the sin. Planning as if God were not there is. One writer describes what that habit amounts to.
The heart of man, far from God, thinks to direct his own steps and decides what he will do, without thinking of the will of God, or even of God at all. The plan itself may not be evil… but God is forgotten. The man acts without God. He lives as if God had left the earth to man, and as if His will counted for nothing. In the ordinary things of everyday life, such a man lives as if there were no God at all.
The remedy is a short phrase to keep at hand:
Whenever we speak of the future, it is a healthy habit to add, "if the Lord wills and we live." This pleases Him. It shows that we submit to Him and depend on Him.
The clearest test case
Men once plotted the death of Jesus. They even fixed the timing themselves, and then the timing slipped out of their hands.
But they said, "Not during the feast, lest there be an uproar among the people." Yet the Lord's purpose stood. He was to die at that very time, and God overturned their plan about the timing.
Resistance costs the resister
If God's counsel stands whatever men do, then opposing it is not dangerous to God but to the one opposing.
So in the long run God always carries out His will. Happy are those who go along with it the whole way! If men resist, they gain nothing but grief and disappointment, and short-lived success only makes it more bitter. Far from blocking the word of the Lord, they carry it out by the very steps meant to serve their own wishes. The evils they dread most, they bring on themselves.
Rest for people whose plans failed
The same truth that unsettles the self-confident steadies the disappointed. We all make real mistakes, and God's counsel still holds.
God will perfect what concerns His servants. We all fail and make plenty of mistakes. Yet the Lord's rich grace covers it all, and He even uses our mistakes as an occasion to shine out more brightly… It is our privilege, in our small measure, to thank God for everything, and to take refuge in His eternal counsels. They must stand, whatever the unbelief of man and the malice of Satan.
Summary
- Many. The heart is crowded with plans, but many ideas are not wisdom. Apart from God's teaching, man's thinking is confusion.
- One. Against the many stands one counsel. Whoever learns it and holds to it is settled and happy.
- Forgotten. Planning is not the problem. Planning as if God had left the earth is. The cure is the habit of saying "if the Lord wills and we live."
- Overturned. Men fixed the day for putting Christ to death, and God overturned their timing. Resistance never blocks God's word. It only brings grief on the one who resists.
- Standing. His counsel stands despite man's unbelief. So even our failures become occasions for His grace to shine, and we can thank God for everything.