WEEK FOUR: LOOK UP

Have you ever taken on a project that was too difficult for you, or too far out of your skill set to accomplish?

My dad owned a 1947 Plymouth Coupe that he had driven around when I was a kid. At one point, the radiator had sprung a leak so he went out and bought a new radiator to fix it. However, at that point he decided that instead of fixing this old car, he would buy a new one instead. So the Plymouth sat in my grandfather’s garage or barn with the radiator in the back seat for nearly thirty years.

The time came when we had to move it, and I decided that instead of just junking it or selling it to someone for scrap, I was going to restore it. After all, it only needed a radiator when he parked it… and that radiator was in the back seat! So, I went out and bought a sander and some sandpaper, and I set to work. Now, I am neither a mechanic nor an auto body man, and I quickly found out that what I thought was a great idea was way over my head. I eventually gave in and, instead of having two thousand pounds of unusable metal, I gave the car to someone who had both the knowledge and the expertise to do the work.

It is easy to find ourselves in a situation that seems too difficult to handle or feels out of our control. When this happens, we can become frustrated and start to worry. What will others think about me? What will they think about my abilities? What will I do now? How will I recover from this?  So what do you do when you find yourself in this type of situation?

A Cornell University study on worry was conducted, and it turns out that 85 percent of what subjects worried about never happened… and with the 15 percent that did happen, 79 percent of those subjects discovered either that they could handle the difficulty better than they expected, or the difficulty taught them a lesson worth learning.  

In Matthew 6:27 Jesus asks, “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” (NIV) He tells them not to worry about what they will wear, what they will eat, or what they will drink. God is loving enough to care about the intimate details of your life, even down to the food and drink. God is always faithful! He’s got you! He’s got your situations! Quit worrying about your past. You can look to your future because God is in control. You do what you can do, but when it is too much, surrender it to God and let him do what only he can do.