I carry with me an imaginary cardboard box. You haven’t seen it, mainly because it is imaginary, but I try to have it with me all of the time. It is important that I have it with me because I’ll never know when I’ll need it. It serves a very important function in my life, and hardly a day passes that I don’t use it. Sometimes I do have a hard time finding it, normally because I have tendencies that keep me from using it.
I am like you, I face situations every day that cause me stress or anxiety. Anyone who has children, a job, friends, a body that is susceptible to illness (as we all do), family, bills, a house, a car, or any responsibility will face stress, worry, and anxiety. The reason we face this potential for worry is that we cannot control all (or any) of the things I just mentioned. We can do our part, work hard, take responsibility seriously, but at some point we reach a point in which we have done all we can do. We have done what is “on our side of the street.” It is when I reach that point that my imaginary box becomes useful.
In my mind’s eye, I take whatever I’m dealing with, I ball it all up as tightly as I can, and I place it in this imaginary box. By the way, on the front of the box is written “God’s Hands.” I close the top of the box, I say a prayer, and I leave it there.
If I am honest, I have the habit of taking it back out of the “God’s Hands” box. I turn it over and over in my mind, and I call that worry.
There are some small things in this box, things as simple as a minor car repair (hoping that it is truly minor). There are some bigger things in the box. There are some things that when I place them in the box they seem to dissolve, and others that have been there for a long time.
Although I’d rather not admit it, often it takes me quite some time to put something in that box. I normally will spend a few days (or weeks) thinking and persuading and manipulating to the best of my ability. When this has gone on for more time than I’d like to admit, I reluctantly pulled out the imaginary box called “God’s Hands,” I gather it all up, and I placed it there. There it sits alongside many other things in my life over which I have no control. It is not easy, but I trust that when it is there it will be taken care of.
An interesting thing, and probably the most important thing…up to this point in my life, whenever I have placed something there, God has always done His part. Not some of the time, not most of the time, but 100% of the time. I can’t explain it. Sometimes (most of the time) God takes care of it in a different way than I’d hoped or imagined, but God has always taken care of it.