I guess I had to struggle through this one before I could understand it. For a long time, I have felt as though I needed to make my life work. If something was wrong, I needed to fix it. If I was stuck, I needed to find the next opportunity. If I was discouraged, I needed to push harder until I got myself somewhere better. Somewhere underneath all of this was an assumption I did not realize I was making: if my life did not turn out right, perhaps I simply had not fought hard enough to make it right.

I do not think that anymore. Or at least, I am trying not to think that way. I am beginning to find a strange kind of peace in accepting that I am responsible for my life without being in control of it. I can work. I can make decisions. I can pray, plan, repent, obey, take opportunities, and sometimes make mistakes. But I cannot make the world cooperate with me, and Christianity never told me that I could. That distinction has given me hope.

Human Freedom Does Not Mean Human Control

I should probably qualify what I mean before going any farther. Theologically, I fall very much on the free-will side of the debate. I am not arguing that every decision I make has already been irresistibly determined and that I should therefore throw up my hands and call whatever happens “God’s will.” Scripture treats human beings as actual moral agents. We choose, and those choices really matter.

Joshua could therefore stand before Israel and say:

“If it seems evil to you to serve Yahweh, choose today whom you will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell; but as for me and my house, we will serve Yahweh.”

Joshua 24:15

The command assumes the reality of choice. Throughout Scripture God calls people to repent, believe, obey, resist temptation, pursue righteousness, flee evil, work, give, forgive, and endure. I do not see any reason to reduce those commands to the appearance of choice while saying that God secretly determines every response underneath them.

But there is another mistake I can make. I can affirm human freedom so aggressively that I begin living as though everything ultimately depends upon me. Free will can quietly become something Scripture never teaches: human sovereignty. Proverbs holds the two ideas together:

“A man’s heart plans his course,
but Yahweh directs his steps.”

Proverbs 16:9

The man plans his way. His plans are real. His deliberation is real, and his decisions are real. Yet somehow, above and around that genuine human activity, Yahweh directs his steps. The proverb does not stop to explain the metaphysics of providence. It does not tell me precisely how God’s direction interacts with human freedom. But it does tell me enough to correct an error in my thinking. I am responsible to plan my way, but I am not ultimately responsible for making the whole course of my life come together.

James makes the same correction in a different way:

“Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow let’s go into this city, and spend a year there, trade, and make a profit.’ Whereas you don’t know what your life will be like tomorrow. For what is your life? For you are a vapor that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away. For you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will both live, and do this or that.’”

James 4:13–15

James does not condemn the businessmen for having a plan. Going into a city, staying for a year, conducting business, and making money are ordinary human activities. The problem is that they speak as though they possess tomorrow. They have moved from planning to presumption. That is probably where I have often gone wrong. I am supposed to make plans, but I am not supposed to believe that the success of those plans rests entirely on my ability to wrestle my future into submission.

Crawling Under Another House

That sounds fine as theology. It is harder when I am crawling underneath another house. There is suffering that arrives dramatically and changes everything in a moment, but there is also the monotonous pain of ordinary life. It is another job. Another problem. Another bill. Another disappointment. Another morning when I wake up carrying the same struggles I carried yesterday. Sometimes there is nothing particularly heroic about the difficulty. You just crawl underneath the house again.

I think one of my mistakes has been treating those ordinary parts of my life as interruptions. Somewhere out there was the life I was supposed to have, and I was trying to get there. The present was something to escape as quickly as possible. Once I finally got the right job, made enough money, accomplished the right thing, solved the right problem, or became somebody significant, then the real part of my life could begin. But Jesus does not describe discipleship that way.

“He said to all, ‘If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever will lose his life for my sake, will save it.’”

Luke 9:23–24

Luke’s wording is particularly difficult for me because Jesus says that the cross is taken up daily. There are certainly moments of extraordinary suffering in the Christian life, but apparently there is also something repetitive about the cross. You pick it up again. You follow Jesus again. Tomorrow comes, and there it is again. That means faithfulness will not always feel significant.

Paul came to something similar from another direction. Philippians 4:13 is probably one of the most frequently detached verses in the New Testament: “I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.” In context, however, Paul is not talking about accomplishing whatever goal he sets for himself. He is talking about surviving radically different circumstances without allowing those circumstances to determine his faithfulness.

“Not that I speak because of lack, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content in it. I know how to be humbled, and I also know how to abound. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret both to be filled and to be hungry, both to abound and to be in need. I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.”

Philippians 4:11–13

Paul can abound, and he can also be in need. Christ gives him strength for both. I would rather have the strength to escape some things, but Paul is describing the strength to remain faithful while they continue. That is a harder kind of strength because it does not depend upon circumstances changing.

Acceptance Is Not Resignation

At this point, there is another distinction that I need to make. Accepting my life does not mean refusing to change it. Contentment is not passivity, and trusting God is not an excuse to avoid responsibility. If I am underneath a house today, that does not mean I am forbidden from pursuing different work tomorrow. If something in my life is unjust, I am allowed to oppose it. If something is broken, I should try to repair it. If I am suffering, I can ask God to remove the suffering.

Jesus did exactly that in Gethsemane. He did not pretend that suffering was pleasant or that wanting another path showed a lack of faith. Instead, he prayed:

“Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.”

Luke 22:42

There are two movements in that prayer, and I need both of them. Jesus asks for what he desires. He does not pretend that suffering is pleasant, and he does not act as though wanting relief is somehow a spiritual defect. Yet after expressing what he wants, he places that desire beneath his trust in the Father. “Nevertheless” is not fatalism. It is surrender after desire has been honestly expressed.

I can ask God for another kind of work. I can ask him to change circumstances that hurt. I can pursue opportunities. I can tell him plainly that I am tired of something and would very much like him to remove it. But there comes a point where I have prayed, worked, planned, and acted, and the rest is simply not mine. That is the part I have had trouble leaving alone.

What Does It Mean to Say God Gave Me This Day?

I also want to be careful with the statement that God gives me what he deems best each day. I do not mean that every evil thing that happens is something God positively desires in exactly the same sense that he desires righteousness. Scripture does not permit me to erase human freedom, human sin, or the brokenness of creation and then blame everything directly on God. People make evil choices, and those choices hurt other people. Creation itself is subjected to corruption. Paul says that “the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now” (Romans 8:22). There is plenty about the world that is not the way God ultimately intends it to remain.

So I do not need to call evil good in order to trust providence. What I can say is that none of it has carried me outside God’s knowledge or care. Whatever circumstances reach me today, whether through my own choices, somebody else’s choices, the ordinary frustrations of a fallen world, or circumstances I simply cannot explain, those circumstances have now become the place in which I must follow Christ.

Jesus says:

“Therefore don’t be anxious, saying, ‘What will we eat?’, ‘What will we drink?’ or, ‘With what will we be clothed?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first God’s Kingdom and his righteousness; and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore don’t be anxious for tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Each day’s own evil is sufficient.”

Matthew 6:31–34

That last sentence is remarkably unsentimental. Jesus does not say that tomorrow will probably be easier. He says tomorrow will have its own trouble. Apparently I do not need tomorrow’s grace today because God has not given me tomorrow yet. That changes how I think about my life.

I am constantly trying to solve years at a time. Where will I be? What will I accomplish? Will this work? Will that opportunity happen? Will I ever get beyond this particular struggle? Yet Jesus keeps dragging my attention back to a much smaller unit of faithfulness: today. I have today’s work. I have today’s people, today’s pain, today’s opportunities, and today’s temptations. Therefore, I need today’s grace.

The Cross I Actually Have

Paul prayed repeatedly for God to remove what he calls his “thorn in the flesh.” We do not know exactly what the thorn was, and I do not think we should turn every hardship into Paul’s thorn. But his unanswered prayer gives us a category that I have sometimes lacked.

“Concerning this thing, I begged the Lord three times that it might depart from me. He has said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Most gladly therefore I will rather glory in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest on me.”

2 Corinthians 12:8–9

Paul wanted the thing gone. God did not rebuke him for asking. But God also did not remove it. The answer was sufficient grace in the presence of continued weakness.

I am beginning to think there are things in my own life that I have treated entirely as problems to be solved when perhaps some of them are, at least for now, crosses to be carried. That does not mean I stop asking God for relief. It means my peace cannot depend upon receiving relief. Peter comes surprisingly close to saying exactly that:

“Therefore let them also who suffer according to the will of God in doing good entrust their souls to him, as to a faithful Creator.”

1 Peter 4:19

Notice that Peter does not say to stop doing good. The Christian is active, and he continues obeying while simultaneously entrusting himself to God. Responsibility remains even when control does not. That is the combination I am trying to learn.

I Cannot Fight Hard Enough to Make Everything Right

I think that is finally where I have arrived. I cannot possibly fight hard enough to make everything right. That statement used to sound hopeless to me, but now it has begun to sound like freedom. The reason is not that effort is meaningless. It is that effort was never intended to make me sovereign over the outcome.

I cannot guarantee that an opportunity opens. I cannot guarantee that people treat me fairly. I cannot guarantee that enough money comes in, that every plan works, that my body cooperates with me, that my mind always cooperates with me, or that I become the person other people recognize as important. I cannot even guarantee that the choices I make with the best information available will produce the result I intended. But I was never asked to guarantee those things.

Psalm 131 has become increasingly meaningful to me:

“Yahweh, my heart isn’t haughty, nor my eyes lofty;
nor do I concern myself with great matters,
or things too wonderful for me.
Surely I have stilled and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with his mother,
like a weaned child is my soul within me.
Israel, hope in Yahweh,
from this time forward and forever more.”

Psalm 131:1–3

There are things too great for me. Apparently maturity does not consist in finally becoming capable of carrying them. David describes maturity as learning not to carry what belongs to God. That is the peace I am beginning to understand.

I can make plans without pretending that I control the outcome. I can believe in genuine human freedom without pretending that the universe has been abandoned to human beings. I can ask God to change my life while accepting the life he has placed before me today. I can carry a cross without calling the cross good, because I know the God who meets me underneath it is good.

And tomorrow I may crawl underneath another house. If I do, that does not mean my real life has failed to begin. It does not mean God has forgotten me, and it does not mean I have failed because I could not fight my way into something different. It means that, at least for that day, this is the place where I have been given the opportunity to follow Christ.

I can still work toward something better. I can still choose, strive, build, plan, and pray. But I do not have to become sovereign in order to have hope. I can do what belongs to me and leave what does not belong to me with God.