One morning this week, I walked into the prison and felt like walking right back out. Before I got to my office, I was told that a captain wanted to see me. Then I go to my office and my phone immediately rang. Then I opened my emails and more bad news greeted me. I was less than ten minutes into my day and I had a multitude of problems that were confronting me. To make matters worse….there was me. I didn’t help. I started getting frustrated and anxious my mind started reeling about how these problems needed to be solved, and how some of them should have never occurred in the first place. Then I did something which never plays out well. I began to make myself overly responsible for the outcome of things. The bottom line was that on top of the actual problems, I was making things more difficult because of the way I was thinking.
Now, being a psychotherapist, you may have thought that I began employing some clever techniques to lower my anxiety. Nope. Instead, I had to step back and acknowledge something that I have had to acknowledge many times before and that was: “Rob, you are not in charge.” In saying this to myself, I affirmed that God is in charge. I get into trouble when I start thinking that situations are up to me. Things start to go south when I start thinking that I have more power and control than I do. So, I took a few steps back mentally and reminded myself that God is over all things and He is in control. Of course He calls me to respond to the situations that are in front of me, but nowhere in God’s word does it say that we are powerful enough to handle much of what comes our way. Instead we hear a call to depend on God and ask for His help. The problem is that our natural reaction to problems is to immediately start martialing our own resources and looking to ourselves to see us through. We get inside our head and our stress levels go up, and our productivity goes down. What if our first step was to just stop and pray and acknowledge who we are and who God is and then ask Him for help.
I am glad to say that on the morning I described I was able to step back and remind myself who is in control and where my help is to come from. I’d like to think that it was the Holy Spirit saying to me, “Now hold on there Rob. Slow down, and look to God.”
I am sure in a few weeks (or days..or minutes) I may slip back into the type of thinking that sets me up as my own god. Then God, in His grace and mercy will bring me back down. He is patient with us. He knows we get ahead of ourselves. We can take comfort in knowing that He is not done with us.
When I did my devotional later in the day, it was about this passage. Coincidence? I don’t think so.
Psalm 121
1 I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
where does my help come from?
2 My help comes from the Lord,
the Maker of heaven and earth.
3 He will not let your foot slip—
he who watches over you will not slumber;
4 indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.
5 The Lord watches over you—
the Lord is your shade at your right hand;
6 the sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon by night.
7 The Lord will keep you from all harm—
he will watch over your life;
8 the Lord will watch over your coming and going
both now and forevermore
Rob