This verse opens the YHWH run, Proverbs 16:1–9: nine sayings naming the LORD in every verse, human plans and God's government laid side by side.
Quick answer
You can arrange your thoughts; you cannot guarantee the moment. A man drafts his case in his heart, but what actually comes out, and what it accomplishes, passes through the LORD's hands.
Read both lines
The first line grants something real: the preparations, the footnote reads "plans," of the heart genuinely belong to man, and wisdom has no quarrel with preparation. The second line draws the boundary the whole run keeps redrawing: the answer of the tongue is from the LORD. The gap between what you rehearsed and what you said, between the argument you built and the way it landed, is where His government lives. Anyone who has walked into a hard conversation fully scripted and watched it go somewhere else has felt this verse.
What it does not mean
Preparation is not pointless and your words are not dictated for you. The verse locates two truths at once: plan as one to whom plans belong, and hold the outcome loosely, because the moment itself belongs to Someone else. A cure for both laziness and control, a license for neither.
Related: Proverbs 16:9 · Proverbs 19:21 · James 4:13–15
New King James Version®, Copyright © 1982, Thomas Nelson. All rights reserved. Full copyright information. Scripture provided by API.Bible.
Go Deeper
If this verse has been used to put weight on you that it was never carrying, ask about it directly.