I don’t think I’m as big a deal as I think I am.
Or rather, I don’t think I am as large a factor in various life equations as I often expect myself to be.
I worry constantly often about whether or not I am messing up my kids’ lives by the way I am mothering them. I have started asking older mothers, women whose children have already left the nest, what it was about their mothering that they saw as aiding in their children’s success and what would they have done differently or would encourage me to do. I have received pretty much the same answer from every godly woman I have asked. All of them have said that, looking back, they just did the best they could and if their kids were successful that was entirely the Lord’s doing.
Wait. You mean, I am not as powerful as I am told that I am? As I give myself the credit of? As I am terrified of being?
We are in the process of making some fairly big life decisions. In this process I have been asking God for wisdom, seeking it in wise counsel and in scripture, and in quiet prayer. (In reality this looks like me standing in my kitchen talking to the ceiling, calling my sister and my friend and talking about what’s going on and my hopes and dreams of what could be, and taking a walk or sitting in one place and letting the interior noise quiet down a bit to see if God is trying to say anything to me in the midst of the swirling chaos of options.) Yesterday was the 16th of the month and I was taking a coveted quiet morning moment to ask God, “what wisdom do You have for me?” And in the soft whisper He so often uses came the thought, “I think there’s a book about that.” The idea came to mind to read the “proverb of the day” - the chapter in Proverbs that happens to correspond with the date of the month. I scrolled to Proverbs 16 and started reading, immediately reminded of a very well-known verse:
Proverbs 16:3 - If you entrust all you do to Adonai, your plans will achieve success.
This is the Complete Jewish Bible (CJB) translation. I've been reading it this year and have been struck many times with fresh eyes on scripture I've read many times over.
My brain reeled: but what do these verses mean?? What does it mean to entrust our plans to Him??
The Hebrew word for “entrust” means to “roll on to” - to essentially give it over completely. Not only the thing itself and its outcome, but also your involvement in it. I have often done something and then entrusted the outcome to God - provided that I felt I had done a good enough job and it was ready to hand over*. But that’s not entrusting it to God. That’s doing something on my own and then asking for His stamp of approval and favor.
Come on, I can’t be the only one. Hands, anyone? Anyone?
The decisions we’re looking to make will impact our family, our kids. But even the way I mother on a normal day affects them. According to my almost-nine-year-old daughter I only have 1.2 good days a month, and the rest are bad. (Given that I haven’t taught her decimals or statistics yet I’m not going to take that too much to heart.) I am not where I was before, but decisions can still sometimes paralyze me - or at least drain me as I fight the paralysis that naturally wants to take place. But what would it look like to entrust God with the very act of my making decisions? Trust to Him the decision itself, even though I, a fallible human, am the one making it?
Another good verse in that same chapter: A person may plan his path, but Adonai directs his steps. (Proverbs 16:9) I am responsible for making plans for the day, for the school year, for dinner. But what would it look like if I surrendered those things, entrusted those things to Him, before I even made the decision, and then again after I made it? What would it look like to live a fully entrusted life? A life of willingly doing the best I can and then joyfully and fully surrendering the work, my involvement, and the outcome? This is a different way of thinking about surrender for me.
What if I am not the biggest factor in my children’s success? What if He is? How would I live differently if that truth sank deep, grew roots, and bore fruit in my life?
He is trustworthy.
Am I willing to live like that is true?
I think I’m going to try.
*I want to acknowledge to myself that entrusting the outcome to God was, itself, a hard-won victory and sign of growth and maturity when I was first able to do it years ago. But I am praising God that He always has more for us.
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