The River That Carved the Grand Canyon

For six million years, the Colorado River has done one thing with unwavering commitment — it has followed gravity downhill. It did not set out to sculpt one of the most breathtaking landscapes on Earth. It simply committed to its course, pressing forward through limestone, sandstone, and shale, one grain at a time. The river never engineered a blueprint for the Grand Canyon. It just kept flowing.

Geologists at Northern Arizona University have mapped over forty distinct rock layers exposed by this patient work. The oldest formations at the canyon floor date back nearly two billion years. The river did not carve them all at once. It entrusted its direction to the pull of the earth beneath it, and the results exceeded anything a human architect could have designed.

Proverbs 16:3 says, "Commit your works to the LORD, and your thoughts will be established." The Hebrew word for "commit" is galal — literally, to roll something onto another, the way you might roll a heavy stone off your own shoulders and onto someone stronger.

When we roll our plans onto the Lord — not clutching them, not engineering every outcome — He establishes our thoughts the way gravity established the river's path. We do not need to see the canyon from the rim before we begin. We simply need to commit our direction to the One who shaped the mountains themselves, and trust that faithful, surrendered work will carve something far more magnificent than we ever planned.