Commit Your Way

“Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act.” – Psalm 37:5

Last weekend, I was standing on the pool deck at a swim meet, waiting for Ellie to swim her 50 free, when I realized she was gone. I had seen her waiting by her lane earlier, but now she was nowhere to be found. I double-checked the heat and lane assignment. I scanned the crowded area near the starting blocks and coach’s tent, areas parents weren’t allowed to go. Was that her? No, it was another girl from her team; they all looked so darned alike in their team suits and caps. Should I run outside to look for her? Probably not enough time. I could feel my heartrate accelerate as the heats inched closer and closer to hers. 

As the long whistle sounded for the heat just before hers, Ellie finally appeared in her lane area, adjusting her goggles as if nothing had happened. Whew. Another gray hair, I thought. Turns out she had been chatting with a group of friends in some hidden corner on the other side of the pool the entire time.

Dave recently shared with me the idea of “cognitive load,” or the mental energy involved in any given task, which is as much a part of the load we bear as more quantifiable or visible things. As our kids get older, the physical labor in parenting decreases in some ways, but the cognitive load increases. Each of the logistics in our lives involve a greater amount of thought, preparation, and emotional input. It’s not that hard to stand on a pool deck, but it takes some inner energy to watch Ellie nearly miss a heat, to let her go knowing she might fail. I don’t have to dress her for meets, but I do have to repeatedly absorb and respond to the anxiety that occurs before them. The decisions feel more complex, and it’s easier to question them, to wonder how they will impact our kids one, five years from now, and be rankled by the not-knowing. 

Psalm 37 seems not to address behavior as much as the fretfulness that happens when we don’t see results; not so much outward actions as the inward load we can bear. And this is what David has to say to us: “Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act.” This word “commit” is Hebrew galal and means “to roll,” “to transfer what is rolled away from one to another.” It is used beautifully in Amos 5:24, “let justice roll down like waters.” One lexicon writes, “The genuine power of this root is expressed by the German rollen, which, like this, is also onomatopoetic… imitating the noise of a globe or other round body rolled forward quickly.”

This doesn’t mean we sit around in cognitive torpor. But we ultimately commit our way—our journeys, the direction of our paths, future outcomes—to God. We take the weight of all of our fears, expectations, hopes for the future, and roll it audibly on to him. We are not meant to bear them. It is not all up to us. We are not in ultimate control. God acts, and this word literally means “labor, manufacture”; it is not an idle word. His acting is conditional upon our committing and trusting. What load are you bearing that you need to release to God? Oh God, help us to live out our trust in who You are by living in faithfulness and releasing the outcomes to you.