While we are busy waiting for God to intervene, we say things like, “I’m giving this to You, Lord,” yet we grab it back as soon as we think it is taking too long. We don’t really believe He is going to do with it what we want Him to. We even start to believe it when the enemy says to us that things will never get better, or even God can’t fix this mess. Do you find yourself saying these things? STOP! We must retrain our minds and crucify our flesh, because if we don’t, we will stop for a while, and run right back to it just like the control addicts that we are. So what does that actually mean?
Give it to God. There is an Aesop’s fable that applies to this situation quite well, if we change the meaning just a bit. There was a boy who reached into a jar of sweets and grabbed a handful. When he went to pull his hands back out, it was stuck. He began to cry, and hearing it, his father came into the room to see what had happened. His father laughed and said, “Just pull your hand out!” The boy cried out, “But then I’ll have to drop my sweets!” The moral of our story is that it’s as simple as letting it go, and not taking it back out, because you can’t have both peace and control. If we drop the control into the jar, we have to leave it there in order to take our hand out.
Lean on, trust in, and be confident in the Lord with all your heart and mind and do not rely on your own insight or understanding. In all your ways know, recognize, and acknowledge Him, and He will direct and make straight and plain your paths. Proverbs 3:5-6 (AMP)
When you were a child and things were broken, you probably took them to your parents to fix. I can’t tell you how many knotted necklace chains my mother unraveled for me. I had total trust in her ability to fix anything, and if she couldn’t fix it, she would replace it for me. I never doubted or worried about anything when it was in her hands. We should feel this same way about God, as He is our Father. We are his little children, coming to Him with broken hearts and convoluted lives. We should have the same trust, if not more, in Him that we did in our parents, to fix things for us. The problem is that the enemy has come in and caused us to feel like God won’t do what’s best with it. The same lie he tells us about trusting others- no one can do it like you can, so don’t let anyone else take care of it, God included. This lie creates a barrier between ourselves and God when we don’t trust Him because we are buying into the belief that He doesn’t love us enough to take care of us.
Commit your way to the Lord [roll and repose each care of your load on Him]; trust (lean on, rely on, and be confident) also in Him and He will bring it to pass. Psalm 37:5 (AMP)
Roll and repose. I had to look up the word repose, it means “to put to sleep”. So God is telling us to roll the burden from our shoulders to His, and then let them rest, be put to sleep, stay there without disturbing them. This means that He carries the burden of our cares and worries, not us. We place the people in our lives, and the concerns in our lives, in His hands. We have to stop trying to control our surroundings, and just let it roll right onto His shoulders and rest there.
The moment of my personal freedom from worry and control was when I finally got what the Bible was saying in Romans 8:28, And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God. All things are going to work together for me, regardless of what it looks like, regardless of what I see in front of me, regardless of how impossible it all seems. This is what you have to realize in order to finish the process… God is saying, ‘Don’t worry, I’ve GOT it!’
So then, there is still awaiting a full and complete Sabbath-rest reserved for the [true] people of God; For he who has once entered [God’s] rest also has ceased from [the weariness and pain] of human labors, just as God rested from those labors peculiarly His own. Hebrews 4:9-10 (AMP)
When we get the urge to control, we just remember those steps; ROLL (our concerns & people on Him), RELEASE (the burdens & need to control over onto Him), and remember that HE’S GOT IT (because He cares for you).
Self-Reflection
Today, choose to roll the situation over to God.
DON’T clinch your hand in the jar, release it, and leave it.
Remember that He’s got it!
Trust Him to take care of it because He loves you and will do what is good for you.