176. He Can Handle What You Can't Control

Luke 12:25-26 How much time do you waste fretting over things you can't control? Everyone does it. Some folks spend thousands to try and slow down the aging process, even though there's nothing you can do in the end. It happens in almost every area of life. People stress over the guy who didn't ask them out or the job that didn't call them back. They lose sleep and rack their brains trying to figure out what the stock market or even the weather is going to do! In counseling-type situations, we often talk about identifying things you can and can't change so that you don't waste time agonizing over things you have no control over. You can't make your dad love you. You can't make your friend stop drinking. You can't give yourself a whole new body type. You can't go back in time to when things were good with that one guy. You can wish that one day didn't happen, but you can't change the fact that it did happen. It's important to identify the things you can't control so that you only work on things you actually can change, but it's also good for another reason: You find out what to pray for. You see, there may be things you can't change, but Jesus can. One time, He said, "Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?" Things that are flat-out impossible for us are child's play for Jesus. If you can't control something, don't worry and fret and try to fix it. Just hand it over to the One who can.