When There’s Nothing I Can Do

There’s nothing I can do!

Those were the last words out of my mouth before everything went silent.

To be honest, I wish they were different.  I wish I had exclaimed words full of faith, maybe a prayer or a plea for help.  I had seen that the car was going to blow through that stop sign, but I was already in the intersection.  My daughter was in the passenger seat, the side that would be closest to impact.  I felt panic but at the same time, a sense of calm as my brain calculated all the scenarios.  Are there any outs?  Can I change course?  Can I back up?  And in the end, it all came down to, “There’s nothing I can do.”

And then, at the place where I ran out, God showed me that He was always there, just waiting for me to admit to my helplessness, my inability to control all the circumstances.  In the place where I finally realized that there is nothing I can do, He graciously showed me again that He will do it for me.  He has it in His control.

He has been showing me all year how out of control I really am.  In my little world where I like to plan ahead and work out all the details, He put me in a place where it was impossible to plan, impossible to know what to expect or what would be next.

I was left hanging and feeling completely helpless, even a little panicky.  It seemed like if I didn’t make things happen, then nothing would happen.

But there was nothing I could do.

So you know what I did?  I prayed.  I wrote down my thoughts, and I handed them over to the Lord.  And I trusted.  It was not that I had stopped trusting God, but I trusted Him, and I also worked really, really hard to do everything right.  All the time.  Of course, I failed miserably over and over, even daily, but it didn’t stop me from striving.

Striving: to “make great efforts to achieve or obtain something,” to “struggle or fight vigorously.”

Do you ever feel like you are making great efforts to achieve something, with the best of intentions, only to find that you are vigorously struggling?

God gently pulled me along this year.  I learned to Be Still.  Cease Striving.  I learned to focus on the day, my daily bread.  It’s not monthly bread, or quarterly bread, or annual bread.  It’s daily.  We have to ask for it daily, and we should expect to have to ask for it again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next.  How many times do I feel like God gives me my daily bread, and I run with it, and I keep running, and then I start to wonder why I get tired and hungry again when I haven’t asked for more?

On that night our vehicles collided, we were spared from injury.  It was the culmination of the journey God has mercifully been holding my hand through.  My first words after asking if my daughter was OK?

“Thank you, Jesus.”

Psalm 46:10a

Cease striving and know that I am God.

 

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