that's His business

June 25, 2010

Lately, I've been listening to Chuck Swindoll's series on Philippians while playing online games at popcap. I particularly liked what he had to say on joy & letting God be God from these verses:

⁴In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy ... ⁶being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. (Philippians 1:4, 6)

How was Paul able to pray with joy for these people he shepherded? By being confident in the knowledge that God was the one who was working in their lives and who would bring to completion the good work that God had started in their lives. Swindoll goes into a few of what he calls joy stealers in our lives:

Joy stealers-

Stress: intense strain over a situation that we cannot change or control

Worry: an inordinate anxiety about something that may or may not occur (usually it doesn't occur but worry steals our joy while we are waiting for the outcome)

Fear: dreadful uneasiness over the presence of evil, danger, or pain

I know I worry and stress easily, and I've been learning to combat it by praying for joy and continually placing all the things I worry and stress about in God's hands, and leaving it there. When we worry, stress, or fear, we're trying to control situations when really the situations are not in our control. We're trying to play God, when we should just let God be God, not only in our lives, but in other people's lives as well. Paul did just that in his prayer. While these are the people he shepherds and led to Christ, he does not worry about their spiritual progress, but instead, prays with joy for them because he knows that it is God who is working in them, and that God will continue to work in them until what has been started in them is brought to completion. I've been learning to do that as well. Recently, I've been praying for friends more, and when I pray for them, it gets soo easy to be filled with joy at the knowledge and faith that God is working in their lives, and that what He has started in their lives will not grow stagnant, but that God will continue to work in their lives until what God has planned out for them is brought to completion.

In my conversations with people, I've noticed that it is easy for us to draw trajectories for others based on what we see now. Everyone has rough edges in their lives that need to be smoothed out by God, but so often we focus on those rough edges, rather than fix our eyes on their God who is still working in their lives and making them to be the masterpieces that He has willed them to be. Our vision is limited and bleak when we focus on the state of humanity, but once our vision is turned to God, it becomes easy, natural even, to be filled with joy and excitement at the work God is doing in the midst of what seems impossible.

Once we realize that people and the situations that befall us are not in our hands, but in God's, and we let it all go, praying that God be glorified in everything, joy becomes much more natural, and life becomes easy. I really liked the following story Swindoll told:

There was a man who fretted over his work. For 12-15 years, he built his business up from nothing and now it was rather extensive, in fact, he had a large plant over several acres, and one day he decided he would give it to God. And that's what he prayed "Lord God, the business is yours, the worry, the stress, the fears, its yours!" He went to bed earlier that night than he had ever gone to bed before since when the business started. In the middle of the night, the phone rang, his colleague called him and said, "the place is going up in smoke!" He got into his car with a smile, and drove to the place where the plant once was, stood there and smiled. His colleague walked up and said, "What in the world are you laughing at? What are you smiling at?" He says, "Listen, yesterday afternoon I gave this business to God, if he wants to burn it up, that's his business."

I found the story to be pretty funny, but also really true. When we give everything to God, our lives, our friends, our careers, our futures, etc, we trust that from there on out, those are all His business. But so often while we may say that we have given the reins of our lives over to God, we don't treat it as His business, but still ours. We still worry and stress about all the situations, good and bad, that befall us, forgetting that once we have given all over to God, the worries, the stress, the fears, are all His, and no longer ours.

I believe this concept goes into our concerns with other people as well. A few weeks ago, I had a conversation with a few friends regarding salvation, whether people could lose it, whether we could ever be sure someone is truly saved or not, whether we could ever be certain that so and so after having done a certain deed could still go to heaven or not, and other issues of the like. As the conversation went along, I realized that with questions regarding other people's spiritual walks and faith, we can't ever be sure or certain. I've heard stories of very devoted people who fall away later on in life, and stories of people who were completely adverse to God turn their whole lives around by accepting Him into their lives. We can never be sure of what God is or is not doing in someone's life, and we're not called to that, it isn't our business, but His. However, we can be confident that whatever God started in their lives, He is the one who will bring it to completion, and we need not stress or worry about it, but we place them in God's hands, the best place to be.

I definitely still struggle with letting go of my own life, future, plans, etc as well as remembering to be confident of God's work in other people's lives, and I have to daily and continually remind myself that in all these things, it is not my place nor my responsibility to worry, stress, or fear, but that it is in God's hands, and it is now His business, and that knowledge and 'letting-go' makes life so much easier to enjoy and experience. I once heard that an unjoyful Christian is an oxymoron, and there is no way to live a joyful Christian life with worry, stress, and fears still very much present in our lives. Hence, may we all strive to let God be God, and in the process of doing so, let go of all our own worries, stresses, and fears, and become joyful Christians, glorifying God with our joy in Him.

(I think today's article on Boundless kind of relates (http://www.boundless.org/2005/articles/a0002313.cfm). How the future is in God's hands, not ours, and how with that knowledge comes peace and stability in the midst of what to us may be confusion and instability.)