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We spend our lives trying to keep both hands on the wheel.
Sometimes the breaking reveals what was holding you all along.Don’t have time to read? Listen to the podcast!
You Were Never Meant to Hold Your Life Together
Most of us like to believe we are reasonably in control.
We make calendars. We have passwords. We buy insurance. We save money. We check the weather before leaving the house. Some of us check it three times, apparently hoping God might reconsider.
Planning is wise.
Then life introduces us to an uncomfortable truth: there are limits to what we can secure.
One phone call can change a year. One diagnosis can rearrange our priorities. One broken relationship can leave us wondering what happened.
Suddenly, the steering wheel we thought we were gripping so firmly does not feel quite so secure.
An old Anglican prayer admits this with unusual candor. We ask God to cleanse and defend his Church because it “cannot continue in safety without your help.”
There is something strangely freeing about admitting that.
We cannot save ourselves. We cannot sustain ourselves forever. We cannot see far enough down the road to govern our lives perfectly.
The Christian answer to life feeling out of control is not greater control. It is learning whom we can trust.
Remember God’s Faithfulness When Life Feels Uncertain
When the future is unclear, remember where God has been faithful.Isaiah speaks to people with every reason to feel uncertain.
God gives them a surprising instruction:
“Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug.” (Isaiah 51:1, ESV)
In other words: remember.
Look backward.
Remember Abraham. Remember Sarah. Remember how God began with one family and created a people.
When God’s people cannot see what he is doing next, he reminds them of what he has already done.
Fear has a terrible memory.
Fear remembers every disaster and conveniently forgets every deliverance. It remembers prayers that seemed unanswered while overlooking the quiet ways grace carried us through.
Psalm 138 speaks from that memory:
“On the day I called, you answered me; my strength of soul you increased.” (Psalm 138:3, ESV)
David does not say nothing difficult happened to him. His confidence comes from discovering God in the middle of difficulty.
Augustine famously prayed:
“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”
We know something about that restlessness.
We keep searching for something sturdy enough to carry the weight of our lives: career, money, reputation, health, relationships, even churches.
All can be gifts.
None can be God.
Eventually, every created thing proves incapable of carrying the burden of being our ultimate security.
When you cannot see what comes next, remember what God has already done.
Recommended Resource: Confessions by Augustine – Augustine’s spiritual autobiography explores our restless search for identity, happiness, and security—and the discovery that our deepest rest is found in God.
Trust Christ With What You Cannot Control
You were never asked to hold everything together.Jesus once asked his disciples perhaps the most important question anyone will answer:
“But who do you say that I am?” (Matthew 16:15, ESV)
Peter answered:
“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” (Matthew 16:16, ESV)
Then Jesus made an extraordinary promise:
“I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” (Matthew 16:18, ESV)
Notice the subject of that sentence.
Jesus does not say, “Peter, build my Church.”
He does not say, “Make sure you keep everything from falling apart.”
He says, “I will build my church.”
The Church does not finally depend upon brilliant clergy, large budgets, or successful programs.
Thank God for that. Church history would otherwise be considerably shorter.
Christ builds his Church.
He cleanses her. He defends her. He governs her.
The prayer with which we began asks for precisely this: that God’s continual mercy would protect and govern a people incapable of preserving themselves.
That same truth reaches into ordinary life.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote:
“When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”
That sounds severe until we recognize something of what is dying: the illusion that we belong entirely to ourselves.
Christianity is not inviting Jesus to become one helpful addition to a life whose direction we still control.
Peter’s confession is much more disruptive:
You are the Christ. You are King. You are Lord. You steer.
For someone exploring Christianity, this may be one of its harder claims.
Jesus does not merely offer advice for constructing a better life. He claims authority over the whole thing.
And strangely, surrendering control becomes freedom.
Perhaps you were never meant to carry the universe on your shoulders.
Recommended Resource: The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer – Bonhoeffer examines what happens when following Jesus moves beyond admiration and becomes a life marked by trust, obedience, surrender, and costly grace.
Trust God When You Cannot Understand What He Is Doing
We cannot always see the pattern from inside it.In Romans 11, Paul confronts a question that has troubled him deeply: How can we trust God when his plan does not make sense to us?
Paul cannot see how all the pieces of God’s saving work fit together. But rather than forcing an explanation, he reaches the limits of what he can understand—and chooses to trust the wisdom of God.
Then he worships.
“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” (Romans 11:33, ESV)
There are moments when explanation must become trust.
There are things you may never understand this side of eternity.
Why did this happen?
Why did that prayer seem to go unanswered?
Why did God allow that door to close?
Why is someone you love suffering?
Christian faith does not ask us to pretend those questions are easy. Paul certainly does not.
Scripture gives us something deeper than an explanation.
It gives us God.
Julian of Norwich, reflecting on God’s providence and love amid suffering, wrote:
“All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”
Not because everything happening now is good.
But because evil does not have the final word.
Psalm 138 says:
“Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you preserve my life.” (Psalm 138:7, ESV)
And then:
“The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me; your steadfast love, O LORD, endures forever.” (Psalm 138:8, ESV)
There is no promise here that we will understand every mile of the road.
There is a promise that we will not walk it alone.
Christian hope is not “I understand.” It is “God is still God, his mercy still endures, and I am still in his hands.”
Recommended Resource: Revelations of Divine Love by Julian of Norwich – Written from within suffering rather than at a comfortable distance, Julian’s reflections offer a deeply Christian meditation on providence, mercy, and confidence in God’s love.
Safe in the Hands of God
The storm can remain while you discover what holds you.Maybe this is where trusting God becomes painfully practical.
There will be moments when you cannot keep yourself safe.
There will be roads where you cannot see around the next bend.
There will be prayers whose answers you cannot understand.
Christianity does not proclaim that you are strong enough to master every road.
It proclaims something better.
Christ is Lord of the road.
The God who called Abraham is still faithful.
The Christ who promised to build his Church is still building.
The God whose ways exceed our understanding is also the God whose steadfast love endures forever.
So loosen your grip on the illusion that everything depends upon you.
Remember.
Follow.
Trust.
The old prayer asks God to protect and govern his people because we cannot continue safely without his help. That confession may sound like weakness in a culture fascinated by self-sufficiency.
It is actually the beginning of freedom.
For the Church—and for each of us—our safety has never ultimately rested in our ability to hold everything together.
It rests in the goodness of the God who holds us.
“The LORD will fulfill his purpose for me; your steadfast love, O LORD, endures forever.” (Psalm 138:8, ESV)
Maybe faith begins there: not with finally getting control of the steering wheel, but with discovering whose hands have been holding us all along.
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If reflections like this help you think more deeply about Scripture, faith, and the questions beneath ordinary life, consider subscribing for future reflections. If someone you know is trying to hold everything together right now, feel free to share this with them.
