Have you ever tried to work with a stripped screw? It’s impossible, right? No matter how hard you turn the screw to connect to the wood, the threads are worn, and they won’t grip the way you need them to in order to make progress. Sometimes, the head of the screw is stripped off as well and you are unable to even get hold of the screw with the screwdriver. It’s a frustrating feeling, isn’t it? No matter how hard you clench the tools, or how fervently you push on the screw, you simply can’t control and create the outcome you want.
“When it looks like things are out of control, behind the scenes there is a God who hasn’t surrendered His authority.” – JW Tozer
Have you ever thought about how much this parallels our own actions in our day-to-day lives? There’s something we aren’t happy with- a job, a relationship, finances- and our first inclination is to just work harder and make change happen or even try to apply more force. But, friends, what if sometimes it’s our own actions that are making everything worse? What if, by staying so narrowly focused on the outcome we want, we are robbing the opportunity God has created for us? What if we actually paused, took a deep breath, prayed… and just gave the challenge to God. I know it’s easier said than done, and I have to be honest, I think God reteaches this lesson to me regularly. As I get further entrenched in a situation, I find myself frustrated, unfulfilled, and if I let myself go long enough, just downright angry. It is in those moments where God has to lean in and open my eyes to my own lack of faith. (sometimes he has to smack me on the head multiple times before I hear him…) The Holy Spirit helps me see that I’ve created a path too narrow for God to act, and in fact I have grabbed hard so tight of the outcome that I leave no room for the story God has written to take place.
Friends, we don’t know and won’t always understand God’s plan. I have been able to look back on so many hardships in my life and see what God did and it’s almost never what I would have imagined. And sometimes, I reflect on the past and can’t see what His plan was, I can’t always understand why something happened to me or to someone I love. Perhaps JW Tozer says it best, “When it looks like things are out of control, behind the scenes there is a God who hasn’t surrendered His authority.” I listened to a sermon a while back that really stuck with me. We are all such a small piece of God’s picture, and we are gazing out on the limited beauty He has created for us, pressed up against an enormous stained-glass window. As my nose touches the pane of glass in front of me, I see the color I’m facing, but standing above and behind is God, and He not only sees the entirety of that beautiful stained glass, He is also its creator. God’s plan is bigger than anything we can comprehend, but what we know is His plan ends with us in miraculous eternity with Our Father. And that means, as much as we want to control our lives, nothing we could ever do will outweigh the authority and plan of God.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.” – Proverbs 3:5-6
Perhaps when we find ourselves fighting with that stripped screw, we should pause and remember that we are children of a God who loves us so much, He sent his son to die for our sins on the cross. And that death, my friends, means the gift of new life and rebirth for us, beyond any beauty our human minds can envision. So instead of pushing harder on the screw, maybe trust and lean into the new one that God has waiting for you, and let his plans take your path straight to Him.