In a world where we can drift toward either helplessness or self-reliance, Brian Jobe, Church on the Move’s Chief Operating Officer, and Whit George, our Lead Pastor, explore the difference between what we can control, what we can influence, and what ultimately belongs to God.
There’s a question God asks throughout Scripture that has the power to change the way we approach almost every challenge in life: What’s in your hand?
When life becomes difficult, we often drift into helplessness. We become consumed by what someone else should do, what needs to change, or what is outside our control. Before long, we find ourselves stuck, frustrated, and waiting for circumstances to improve.
At the same time, there’s another ditch on the other side of the road. Instead of believing everything depends on someone else, we believe everything depends on us. We carry burdens we were never meant to carry and try to force outcomes through our own effort.
One ditch is helplessness. The other is self-reliance. The way of wisdom sits somewhere in the middle.
A helpful way to think about life is through the lens of responsibility and control.
There are things we have:
The challenge is learning the difference.
Take marriage, for example. You have control over how you treat your spouse. You have control over your attitude, your words, your faithfulness, your kindness, and your responses.
What you don’t have control over is how your spouse responds. You don’t control their decisions, their growth, or who they are becoming.
Yet many of us spend enormous amounts of emotional energy worrying about things that were never placed in our hands to begin with.
The same is true in friendships, parenting, work, and ministry. We often ruminate over things that are not our responsibility while neglecting the things that actually are.
The question isn’t, “What should everyone else do?” The question is, “What has God placed in my hand?”
One of the hardest realities of following Jesus is that there are often long seasons where things outside our control remain unchanged.
In those moments, we naturally want a resolution to our circumstances. We want God to fix the problem. But often God’s primary goal is something deeper.
While we’re focused on immediate results, God is focused on who we are becoming. He is far more interested in forming the character of Christ in us over the long term than He is in providing swift solutions to every challenge we face.
That doesn’t mean He doesn’t care about our circumstances. It means He cares about something even greater.
We often prize the dramatic. We love breakthrough stories, sudden victories, and overnight change. But so much of God’s work happens gradually.
At times it can feel like nothing is happening at all. Then one day you wake up and realize you’ve changed.
The beauty of gradual transformation is that it tends to be lasting transformation. God goes deep before He goes fast.
If we’re honest, many of us have a results-based obedience. We’ll obey as long as it produces the outcome we want.
But biblical obedience is not measured by outcomes. It’s measured by willing surrender. Obedience is measured more by your choices than your feelings.
The question isn’t whether your circumstances have changed. The question is whether you’ve been faithful with what’s in your hand.
From the very beginning, God has chosen to work through partnership.
In Genesis 2, God places Adam in the garden and gives him meaningful responsibility. There’s deep relationship with God, but there’s also purpose and participation. Adam is invited into God’s work.
Then in Genesis 3, we see what happens when independence replaces dependence. Humanity begins trying to define good and evil apart from God, and everything begins to unravel.
The story of Scripture is not God looking for passive spectators. It’s God inviting people into partnership.
He gives us responsibility while calling us to dependence.
Why do we so often devalue what God has entrusted to us? Part of it is human nature.
From the beginning, blame has always been easier than self-examination.
We’re masters at hiding. We hide from the truth about ourselves, the truth about our motives, and sometimes even the truth about God.
That’s why repentance is so important. Not only repenting of the wrong things we’ve done, but sometimes repenting of the right things we’ve done for the wrong reasons.
God is always after the heart beneath the behavior.
The solution to your problem may not come quickly.
In fact, because God loves you, He may choose to walk you through the process slowly.
A good father doesn’t simply give answers. He develops maturity.
The amazing thing is what can happen when someone stays faithful in the small things. Small acts of obedience compound over time into a life that looks increasingly like Jesus.
Maybe today you’re focused on things you cannot control.
But God keeps bringing us back to the same question:
What’s in your hand?
You may not control the outcome, but you can be faithful.
And over time, you’ll discover that God often does His deepest work through ordinary people who simply keep placing what’s in their hands back into His.
Address:
1-244 & 129th
Service Times:
Saturday at 5:00 PM
Sunday at 10:00 AM
Address:
1-244 & 129th
Service Times:
Saturday at 5:00 PM
Sunday at 10:00 AM
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