DAY 72: TUESDAY

WHEN YOU CAN’T CONTROL THE OUTCOME

“A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps.” Proverbs 16:9 (KJV)

MY PRAYER FOR YOU

Dear Heavenly Father,

Today I pray for the woman who has done what she can and still doesn’t know how everything will turn out. You know the plans she has made, the prayers she has prayed, the conversations she has had, and the things she has tried to handle wisely. You also know the parts she can’t control.

Help her recognize the difference between responsibility and control. Give her courage to do what belongs to her without trying to carry what belongs to You or to someone else. When fear tells her that she needs to manage every detail to keep something from going wrong, remind her that faithfulness doesn’t require control.

Teach her to hold her hopes with open hands. Let her pray boldly, plan wisely, work faithfully, and love deeply without making her peace dependent upon a particular outcome. If something doesn’t happen the way she hoped, remind her that disappointment doesn’t mean You have left her.

Help her teach her children to work hard and make wise choices while understanding that they won’t always control what happens next. Let them learn that their responsibility is faithfulness, not forcing an outcome.

In Jesus’ name,

Amen.

DEVOTIONAL

Yesterday, we talked about learning to have peace without certainty. Today, we’re taking that one step further because sometimes we know exactly what we want to happen. We just can’t make it happen.

That can be difficult.

You can prepare carefully and still not get the outcome you wanted. You can communicate clearly and still be misunderstood. You can love someone well and still not control their choices. You can parent faithfully and still have a child make a poor decision. You can pray for something deeply and still have to wait.

“A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps.” Proverbs 16:9 (KJV)

Planning isn’t the problem. Scripture doesn’t teach us to become passive. We make decisions, seek wisdom, prepare, work, communicate, and take responsibility for what God has entrusted to us. The problem comes when responsibility quietly turns into control.

Responsibility asks, “What belongs to me?”

Control asks, “How can I make sure this turns out the way I want?”

Sometimes the line between the two is difficult to see.

You may tell yourself you’re only trying to help when you’re actually trying to influence someone’s decision. You may keep explaining because you hope the right words will produce the response you want. You may keep checking because knowing what is happening makes you feel like you have some control over it.

You may even pray and then spend the rest of the day trying to manage the thing you just placed in God’s hands.

That doesn’t mean you don’t trust God at all. It may mean there are places where surrender is still being learned.

And surrender is difficult when control once helped you feel safe.

If unpredictability has hurt you before, controlling what you can may have become one of the ways you tried to protect yourself. Plan ahead. Keep everyone happy. Watch for changes. Fix problems quickly. Make sure nothing gets too far outside your control.

But eventually you encounter something you simply can’t manage.

Another person has free will. Your children grow older and make more of their own decisions. Relationships change. Opportunities open and close. People misunderstand you. Circumstances shift.

You discover the uncomfortable truth that you can influence many things, but you can control very few.

That realization can either increase fear or deepen surrender.

Sometimes peace begins with asking a very simple question: What actually belongs to me?

Your words belong to you. Your choices belong to you. Your honesty, boundaries, effort, preparation, repentance, obedience, and response belong to you.

Another person’s choices don’t.

Their feelings don’t.

Their interpretation of you doesn’t.

Their willingness to change doesn’t.

The final outcome often doesn’t either.

That doesn’t mean those things don’t affect you. They may affect you deeply. Someone else’s choices can have real consequences in your life, and wisdom may require you to respond to those consequences. Surrender doesn’t mean pretending you are unaffected.

It means you stop trying to take responsibility for the part you can’t control.

There is freedom in that.

You can communicate clearly without forcing understanding. You can set a boundary without controlling how someone reacts to it. You can offer advice to your child without being able to make the decision for them. You can love someone without being able to make them love well in return.

You can do your part and let another person have theirs.

That is especially important in parenting because as your children grow, your role changes. When they are little, you make many decisions for them. As they mature, they need increasing opportunities to make decisions, experience appropriate consequences, learn discernment, and take responsibility.

That can be scary.

Sometimes protecting our children can quietly become trying to control every outcome for them.

We want to prevent every heartbreak, bad friendship, mistake, disappointment, or failure. But some lessons can’t be learned through our warnings alone.

There will be times when you have given wisdom, prayed, set whatever appropriate boundaries belong to you, and then have to watch your child choose.

That doesn’t mean you stop parenting.

It means you remember that you aren’t God.

And sometimes we need that reminder in every relationship.

You can be a safe person without controlling whether another person becomes safe. You can communicate respectfully without controlling whether they respond respectfully. You can remain confident in Christ even when another person makes choices you don’t trust.

Your security doesn’t have to come from controlling them.

It can come from knowing that whatever they choose, God will give you wisdom for what belongs to you next.

That is a very different kind of confidence.

It says, “I don’t need to control this person to know I can respond wisely to what is actually happening.”

It says, “I don’t need to guarantee the outcome before I can have peace.”

It says, “I will do what God asks of me and trust Him with what happens beyond my obedience.”

This doesn’t make disappointment disappear. You are allowed to want something. You are allowed to hope. You are allowed to pray specifically.

Jesus Himself prayed, “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me:” and then continued, “nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.” Matthew 26:39 (KJV)

There is nothing faithless about bringing God what you want.

Surrender is being able to bring Him what you want without demanding that He prove His goodness by giving it to you exactly that way.

You can hope and surrender at the same time.

You can plan and surrender.

You can love and surrender.

You can work and surrender.

You can pray and surrender.

Open hands don’t mean you stopped caring.

They mean you stopped pretending everything belongs in your grip.

Releasing an outcome does not mean you stop caring. It means you stop treating your care as authority over the result. Pray. Prepare. Speak. Protect where protection is needed. Make the wise decision available to you. Then let another adult own his choices and let God own what only God can control.

TAKE A MOMENT

Think about something you are trying very hard to make turn out a particular way. Ask yourself: What part of this genuinely belongs to me, and what part am I trying to control because I’m afraid of what could happen if I don’t?

Do what belongs to you. Then notice what remains.

That is the part you need to release.

JOURNAL WITH GOD

What outcome am I most tempted to control right now?

What am I afraid will happen if I stop trying to manage it?

What parts of this situation genuinely belong to me?

What belongs to another person that I may be trying to carry for them?

Have I confused helping, explaining, preparing, or protecting with trying to control an outcome?

Is there a decision one of my children needs room to learn to make rather than having me manage every part of it?

Can I want something deeply without making my peace dependent upon receiving it?

What would open handed trust look like in this situation today?

YOUR TIME WITH GOD

Bring God the outcome you most want to control. Tell Him exactly what you hope happens. You don’t have to pretend you don’t care in order to surrender.

Then ask Him what belongs to you. Is there a conversation you need to have, a boundary you need to hold, work you need to complete, wisdom you need to seek, an apology you need to make, or a decision you need to make? If there is, do your part faithfully.

Then stop where your responsibility stops.

When your mind begins trying to figure out how to make another person choose differently, how to guarantee the result, or how to prevent every possible disappointment, remind yourself: That part isn’t mine to control.

You may have to release it more than once. That is okay. Surrender is often something we practice repeatedly as our hands try to close around the situation again.

You aren’t becoming careless. You’re learning the limits of your responsibility.

Do what belongs to you. Let other people be responsible for what belongs to them. Trust God with what none of you can control.

You don’t have to hold the outcome to remain secure.

God is already holding you.