A useful division

A useful division to keep in the mind is between the things you can do something about and the things you can’t do something about. Keep that bifurcation in mind and you will do well. The biblical warrant for this is implied in every page of Scripture but comes into sharp focus in particular texts:

“Trust in the LORD and do good …” (Psalm 37:3)

And:

“… Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man” (Ecclesiastes 12:13).

These two halves are something you can practice every moment and get good at. You can test yourself throughout the day (2 Corinthians 13:5) to see if you are doing it. Are you trusting God with the things that are out of your hands? Are you doing the good things that are in your power to do and that can bear good fruit if you actually do them?

To be sure, there is a bleeding of one category into the other. “Trusting” and “fearing” God are things to do, as surely as being kind or paying your bills are things to do. Indeed, trusting is at the top of the list of things to “do.” A man is saved by faith, but faith is a choice to believe, or to “trust.” It is something you do. God doesn’t do the trusting for you. God doesn’t do the believing for you. That is your role. By God’s grace, but your role.

From the other end of the equation, the matters in which we are to “do good” and “keep his commandments” are to be done in a mental position of “trust” and “fear.” “Without faith it is impossible to please him” (Hebrews 11:6), no matter what we crank out.

But my point is that I find much practical benefit, as I go about my business, in maintaining this “division” in my head: God’s “labor” and mine. Anxiety is stilled and peace is restored whenever I keep the two straight: “Andrée, trust in the Lord—oh, and do good.” There is something about my present situation I must put into God’s hands and refuse to pick up again; and there is something about my situation that is in my court and within my power through His enabling grace.

We have a tendency to get hazy on this division and slip away from our place of peace. Sometimes it is failure to trust God with things we cannot change; sometimes it is neglect of doing the things we can do. If we catch ourselves obsessing over the past we have transgressed, we must get back to the present quickly, which is the only place of actualization. The past isn’t on your “to-do” list anymore.

Let’s say you blew your first marriage. Fine, that’s over with and forgiven if you confessed it to God. What do you do now—today, while it is today (Hebrews 3:15)? Today is all you have, and it is marvelous. Scripture puts no ceiling on the possibilities. God is in the business of redemption and of using the raw materials of past mistakes to do unheard of things (1 Corinthians 2:9). He “gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist” (Romans 4:17).

Jesus says, “Come to me … and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:28-29). “Coming to him” means coming in trust—and then obeying Him as a good disciple (John 15:10). Rest and repose of soul rise as we do that. It is not hard when we take one step at a time. That’s why Jesus says: “My yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:30). It is easy and it is light because it is only this moment’s call that you need to think about, not the next 10 years. The next 10 years will take care of itself. That’s the part that belongs solely to Him in this division of labor.