Trusting God with What You Can't Control

Lem Wanfeng graduated in 2008 right as the

global economy fell It took her two years just to find her first

real job. She held on to it and started to feel settled. Then,

four years in, the news came. The company was folding. All of

it. All 60 employees, Wanfeng included, were out of work all

at once. She was a breadwinner, and the loss shook her. What

unsettled her most was that none of it had been in her hands to

begin with. She hadn't made a bad call. The company had simply

come apart around her. We'll come back to how Wanfeng found

her footing. But

welcome to Daily Devotions for Busy Lives. I'm Bart Leger. Now,

let me tell you a little bit about my own wiring. Give me a

problem I can't do anything about, and I'll lie awake at

night, turning it over, running the same scenario again and

again, as if enough worry might change how it turns out. And it

never does. All that changes is me, and not necessarily for the

better. I've had to learn, and I'm still learning, to name a

thing as outside my hands and give it back to God. You already

know the feeling. Some of the things that worry us most are

the ones we have the least power over. You can't control what

your adult child decides to do. You can't guarantee your health

will hold up tomorrow, the economy, or what other people

think of you. Some of it you can maybe nudge a little bit, and a

lot of you simply can't even get close to touching. And that's

exactly the stuff we lie awake rehearsing, as if staring at it

long enough will bring it under our control.

is that worrying feels like doing something. If I'm anxious

about it, at least I'm taking it seriously. At least I'm not

being careless. But worry only wears the costume of

responsibility. It changes nothing on the outside, and it

drains you on the inside. Jesus put a simple question to people

who did this. Listen to Matthew 6, 27. Can all your worries add

a single moment to your life? It's a practical question, and

the answer is obvious. No. Worrying has never added one

minute to anyone's life or fixed anything they were worried about.

Somebody once called worry unpaid rent on tomorrow. You're

paying today in sleep and peace for a day that hasn't come and

may never come the way you fear. Jesus wasn't scolding people for

caring. He was pointing them toward a better place to put

what they couldn't fix. He told them over and over in that same

chapter to hand it to their father. The God who feeds the

birds and dresses the fields knows what you need before you

ask, and he can hold what you can't. So here's a practice that

helps. Sort your worry into two piles. One pile is what you can

do something about, so go do it. Take a step. Make the call. The

other pile is everything outside your reach, outside your control.

And that pile has your name written all over it in worry.

And that's the pile to hand over to God. Peace usually comes on

the far side of admitting a thing that was never yours to

fix in the first place. That's how Wan Feng found her way

through. Wan Feng found her peace by admitting the whole

thing was out of her control and looking much, much more steady

than a paycheck. She kept coming back to Psalm 121, where the

writer lifts his eyes to the hills and remembers that his

help comes from the Lord. Her worth, she realized, was never

tied to a job title. She was God's child before the company

and she was God's child after. That's what worry can't take

from you. Jobs end, and the economy does what it does, but

the one thing that was never up for grabs is whose you are. When

you can't control the outcome, you can still stand on that.

Here's today's challenge. Take the worry that's been running

you lately and sort it out. On one side, write down anything

you can do about it, then go do that one thing. On the other

side, write the part that's outside your hands and pray this

over it. God, this isn't mine to fix, so I'm giving it to you.

Then leave it with him. When it comes creeping back tonight, and

it probably will, just go ahead and hand it over again. You may

have to do that many times, and each time is your trust. It's

getting built. Father, we bring you the things we've been

gripping that were never in our power anyway. The people we

can't fix, the outcomes we can't guarantee. And thank you that

you hold what we can't, and that you already know what we need.

Teach us to do the part that's ours, and to leave the rest with

you. Give us the peace that comes when we finally open our

hands. In Jesus' name, amen. If you need prayer today, I'd love

to hear from you. You can leave me a voicemail at

dailydevotionsforbusylives.com slash voicemail. I listen to

every single one, and it would be an honor to bring your name

before the Lord. Thanks for joining me on Daily Devotions

for Busy Lives. Remember, worry can't add a single moment to

your life. So do the part that's yours, and hand the rest to a

Father who can hold what you can't. Come back next time for

more encouragement to help you live grounded in God's truth.

Until then, God bless, and have a great day.