Sometimes God allows us to face difficult circumstances outside of our control. Sometimes we create these circumstances on our own. These self-made trials are the ones I want to focus on in this post.

This is a picture of my 2-year-old daughter’s breakfast this morning. If I were to ask her how it got like this, she could give all kinds of excuses. The pop tart crumbled by itself, it wasn’t made firmly enough to withstand the clumsiness of her little hands, she can’t be to blame because she didn’t know the extent of the mess her actions were going to cause. These points may hold some validity, but the fact still remains- SHE MADE THE MESS.

I think we often go through life like this. We make messes, some are small and some require quite a bit more clean up. But they all present an opportunity to own them or dismiss them as circumstantial because we allow ourselves to be blinded by the sinful depravity of our human hearts. In my life, I do this a lot (by a lot I mean pretty much every day) with my health among other examples. I’ve fought many times to skirt around the fact that I started breaking my body down long before it finally crashed. I pushed my limits with sleep, eating habits, stress levels and over-commitment of time and energy for several years. And sure, I had what I deemed ‘good reasons’ for all of it - emphasis on the word ‘I.’ I thought I was sufficient enough to decide what was best for me and set my limits accordingly. It became an addiction of sorts. I was exhausted as heck, but I loved feeling a sense of worth and importance. The problem was, however, that I was not heading God’s warnings and I was creating symbolic “crumbled Pop Tarts” left and right. If I screwed up a proposal, got short-tempered with my husband, or worked through one of my kid’s games, I would justify it away because I was a hero in my own head. According to my pride, I was not at fault here. There were a million excuses I made to avoid feeling responsible.

Now that I’ve got physical struggles that make certain tasks difficult, I play a different version of the same blame game. Even though I know my limits, I still push through in ways that I shouldn’t and then I’m upset and frustrated when I crash. Am I down because I have health conditions that put restrictions on my activity? Yep. Are those restrictions where the fault truly lies? Nope, but I try to believe they are and I focus my anger at them constantly. But the reality is that I need to own the mess I make when I stretch myself. I chose to keep going when there were stop signs popping up. I chose to reason away the reality that the rest I required was more important than whatever thing I sacrificed my health to achieve. I am not a victim; I am a person who needs to make better decisions based on the parameters that exist in my life and I need to keep my eyes fixed on Jesus in order to understand what those better decisions should look like.

In Matthew 14, the disciples were on a boat in the middle of a scary storm and Jesus walked on water toward them in order to help calm their fear. At first, they grew more afraid because they thought He was a ghost, but Christ reassured them of who He was, “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid” (vs.27b). Peter wanted more evidence and requested the ability to walk on water to meet Jesus to which Jesus replied “Come.” Peter literally stepped out in faith, eyes fixed on the Lord and he was able to stabilize his footing on the surface of the sea. As he moved forward, however, the winds and waves distracted him and he started to panic and sink. He called out to Jesus who, not only took Peter’s hand to pull him out of a dire situation, but also calmed the storm around him.

What a symbolic picture of our circumstances. Peter didn’t create the storm, but his choice to turn away from Jesus within the storm became the reason he started going down. We often find ourselves in the middle of something scary or troubling and we try all the various ways we think we can bail ourselves out. We rely on our own strength, start making decisions based on beliefs that revolve solely around our own desires, and find that the mess just keeps getting messier. The more we try to handle life our own way, the further we sink in our sea of despair.

Going back to my original example, how well do you think it would have gone over to have my daughter clean her mess up on her own? There are steps she could have taken to aid in the process, sure, but the reality is that she needed my help if every crumb was going to end up off the counter and into the garbage. We need to stop believing that we can handle the pile of crumbs in front of us by ourselves; we need to realize that it’s impossible to walk on the water with our own strength and strong will. Instead, it’s time to start resting in the promises of Christ. He will hold our hand as we own the challenges we’ve created for ourselves and lift us up from our sinking situations as he lovingly guides us back into the boat. So, let’s stop focusing our eyes on the self-inflicted chaos swirling all around us and, instead, possess a gaze aimed directly into the eyes of the One who can help us clean up our messy circumstances in a way that brings glory to Him and peace to us. Have faith in his forgiveness and grace, it’s sufficient for every crumb, spill and stain. The depth and breadth of his mercy covers it all.