Give God His Job Back
I don’t know about you, but I like to be in control. Control of my life, of other people’s lives, of schedules and plans. I’ll admit, even with things that are supposed to be fun, I have the tendency to plan them all out, leaving no room for spontaneity. Don’t get me wrong, I am very adventurous. I love unexpected trips, like the one my family had to take to an underground parking garage at the Nashville International Airport when our rental car broke down on the way to Florida (true story!). Those kind of events that cannot be planned for are always enjoyable for me, but then it’s time to control the next thing. Well, my friends, if you struggle with this, you are certainly not alone, and it’s about time we realize that it’s not up to us to control every aspect of our lives. It’s about time we give God His job back.
Guess what? Everything that is on your to-do list for this week, all the plans you have made, that get-together with friends tomorrow, the lunch date with your boyfriend on Friday, and that football game on Sunday night, are not guaranteed. That’s right, I said it. Proverbs 27:1 says “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring”. That’s not just good advice or a more holy way to say “live in the moment”. It’s legit. We really aren’t guaranteed our perfectly planned tomorrows. And even if tomorrow does come, Proverbs 27:1 has something to say about that, too. Notice that it says “you do not know what a day may bring”. Is Jesus just calling out our schedules here, saying that we really know nothing about what our days hold? Yeah, He sure is. If you’re anything like me, that kind of stresses you out. What’s the point of even planning if we don’t know what our days will hold? Exactly. Now don’t get me wrong, planning is sometimes necessary if you have to be somewhere on time or if you have a lot of schoolwork to get done and you want to figure out what order to do it in. That’s not the kind of planning that I’m talking about. I’m talking about excessive planning. Planning for days that are weeks or even months and years from now. I do that a lot, and I’m guessing you do too, but we don’t have to. It’s not our job to know what next September will look like. It’s God’s. And we have taken that responsibility right out of His Hands.
Why do you plan things? I’m serious, why do you plan things? Well, it’s because things are uncertain and you want to create a routine or a schedule to fill up that uncertain day, right? Well, here’s the thing: God never plans. God doesn’t have to plan. There is nothing uncertain in God’s eyes. He has known and seen everything from the beginning of time, and will continue knowing and seeing until the end of it. When we plan, we are assuming. Think about it like a car ride. All of us at one point or another have thought about and figured out what time we would need to leave the house in order to arrive where we need to be at the correct time. That’s not planning. That is assuming. Assuming that there is not a wreck on the road which will cause you to take an alternate route that takes 20 minutes more. Assuming that your car will start so that you can even leave in the first place. Assuming that the event won’t be cancelled last minute and you’ll have to turn around and go right back home. When we plan, we have to assume. I want to make a syllogism for you. Some of you might know what that is, and some of you may have never heard that word before. I learned about syllogisms in my 10th grade Rhetoric and Logic class. A syllogism is defined as a form of reasoning in which a conclusion is drawn from two given or implied premises. I will give you an example:
All roses are flowers
I am holding a rose
Therefore, I am holding a flower
Simple, right? Well, now I am going to illustrate what we have been talking about with a syllogism of my own:
When people plan, we have to assume
God doesn’t have to assume
Therefore, God doesn’t have to plan
See what I did there? When we plan, we assume the things that we really don’t know for certain, like the car ride analogy. But God never has to assume, because God knows everything. Therefore, you guessed it, God doesn’t have to plan.
So, I think it’s about time we give God His job back, how about you? For so long we have been taking God’s responsibilities right out of His hands and carrying them around in our own. And the thing is, we have been doing a pretty bad job. God’s job is to know things that we can’t possibly know, and yet here we are, trying to know them anyway! But how do we give God His job back when we have been owning it for so long? I’ll let you in on a little secret: It’s really easy. We so easily took it out of His hands the second we started planning and assuming, so we can just as easily put it right back where we got it. Just tell Him. Ask Him for forgiveness and tell Him you would like to resign your position as God. He will gladly take it over.
Lord, thank you. Thank you that you really do know and see it all. Thank you that you don’t have to plan, because you know. You are the best at your job, and I am not. So, I ask for your forgiveness. I want to give you your job back. Thank you that I don’t have to know, because you do. I release all my plans and preparations and schedules to you, Lord, and I ask that your will would be done in them, not mine. Help me to put all of my planning in your hands and to really leave it there, not grabbing onto it the next time I get worried about the unknown. And when planning is necessary, help me to focus on the little things that I can control, and not anything more. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
