My grand sponsor once say, “Do you know the difference between God and you?”
“God doesn’t drive around wanting to be you.”
That line has stayed with me. How often do I stand in God’s way? Am I like the friend who asks for advice but never takes it? How many times have I known I was headed down the wrong path and kept walking anyway?
I’ve asked God for direction while hoping He’d agree with the decision I’d already made. I’ve prayed for peace, then spent the rest of the day trying to get someone else to change so I could have it. I can turn something over to God and take it back before I’m done praying.
Faith is simple. It asks me to trust God before I know why. I make it difficult when I insist on understanding everything before I’m willing to accept what’s in front of me. I can spend hours arguing with what has already happened, as if going over it one more time might give me a different past.
Pause for a moment. How much do you actually control? You can make the call, tell the truth, or apologize. What someone does with your words is theirs to decide. The world keeps moving either way.
And even when my mind understands this, it still tries to run things. I can turn one unanswered text into a whole argument. By the time the other person calls back, I’ve already fought with them in my head.
Jesus knew we’d have trouble in this world. He tells us where to find peace in the middle of it.
John 16:33 (ESV)
“I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”
So let God be God, and you be you. Step aside long enough to see what’s actually happening. Do what’s yours to do with love. When you catch yourself trying to arrange the outcome again, give it back to God. You may have to do that more than once today. I know I will.
