Don't lose perspective...

Don't lose perspective - Whose hand is it in?

Found this note I had scribbled down in the late 1990’s last February and turned it into the following for my older brother who was going through a particularly difficult time. His wife had experienced a stroke, and he was exceedingly frustrated because he couldn’t fix anything.  Since this is such a common feeling for me in much less dire circumstances, I thought you all might be able to relate and get something out of it. 

Don’t lose perspective.  Know what you haven’t been called to do. Know your role and calling. When you get discouraged, you tend to exaggerate (mountain vs molehill) and focus on trying to solve the problem instead of bringing it to God. Remember when it’s in our hands, it’s a burden, in His hands it’s a blessing. In our hands, it’s an obstacle, in His hands, it’s an opportunity. In our hands, it’s a problem, in His hands, a solution. The power and ability are determined by whose hand it’s in, not the size or difficulty or urgency of the problem itself. We need to release it and put it in God’s hands.

 When this note was written John Elway had led the Broncos to back-to-back Super Bowl victories, Michael Jorden led the Bulls to their 6th NBA championship and Tiger Woods won the Masters, PGA and was ranked #1 in the world. I reasoned that taking the football out of my hands and putting it in Elway’s, the basketball in Jordan’s and the golf club in Tiger’s was a much smarter play and path to success.  I was using a sports analogy to explain that success is dependent on who’s hand it’s in, but ultimately it was God giving these athletes their abilities and teams/coaching and allowed them to win.

 God is the creator and sustainer of all life, and His hands are more than able to hold all our problems. Look at God the Son, Jesus. In His hands, the tragedy of the cross becomes His triumph over our sin and death itself. These two insurmountable problems for us were overcome in God’s hands. God turns our grief into immeasurable joy and grace when we choose to believe in Him and put our problems in His hands. 

One of our problems is that we don’t understand our role and our calling. God builds His kingdom by His Spirit through the leadership of Jesus. It’s not by our might and power (Zech 4:6), but by His Spirit in His perfect timing and power. Our role as disciples is to follow Jesus. He’s the leader, we’re not. Our calling is into fellowship with Jesus. 1 Corinthians 1:9 (NIV) God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. 

It’s only through this fellowship that we get our directions. Our churches seem to have too many leadership classes and too few following and fellowship classes. Even our servant leadership classes tend to stress the importance of emulating Jesus’ style of servant leadership, which is good, but only if we first are responding to His directions. Servant leaders are supposed to follow the Master, but we tend to jump in somewhere because we think it’s needed rather than responding to Jesus’ leadership and direction.  Another words, we see problems and try to fix them and that’s not our role. Jesus, God the Son is the head of the church and is responsible for the leading and fixing.  We need to become experts at fellowshipping with Jesus, listening to Him and following His directions. The Holy Spirit will enable us to do what Jesus directs. 

But this isn’t easy and it’s much simpler to just jump in and “help” somewhere, especially if you’re like me. We also rationalize that we don’t want to fall prey to the “paralysis of analysis” or be part of the perceived 80% of the folks who don’t jump in anywhere. But in doing so, we end up building our own kingdoms that in the end will have no impact on God’s Kingdom and ultimately count for nothing. 

So, let’s put this all back in God’s hands and start fellowshipping with Jesus every day.  When we do this, He’ll start changing our hearts, opening our ears, directing our actions, and allowing us the incredible privilege of being yoked to Him (Matt 11:29), following His directions, and seeing Him build His Kingdom.

 Cary Allen (cary.allen@comcast.net)