“Ah, Sovereign LORD, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and outstretched arm. Nothing is too hard for you.

~Jeremiah 32:17~

Nothing is impossible for God.  Some people can’t even believe that God is, much less that He is all-powerful.  This is evidenced by their constant attempts to jump into the middle of things that they do not understand.  For example, this year I had some issues with my daughter not wanting to go to school.  She has experienced a bit of confusion and sadness over the divorce of her father and I, but we have worked through it little by little.  On my side, I’ve tried to remind her that God is taking care of us and that there really is no reason to be afraid.  I’m not sure what is being done on the other side, but there seems to be a disconnect somewhere. 

There were two short periods of time (about five days each) when she absolutely refused to join the rest of the kids in her classroom.  I fought with her and pleaded with her, but she was scared to death to go in.  We eventually worked it all out, but every once in a while, the situation will rear its ugly head again.  By the time we finished the school year, however; she was fine.  She was going to class, her grades were good, and she even voluntarily sang (by herself) in front of nearly five hundred people at the school’s first attempt at a talent show.  I was shocked that she would get up there in front of everyone given the degree of fear she had shown just weeks before when I’d tried to get her to go to her classroom in the morning.  But this is just the way it goes.  Emotions creep up on children just the same as they creep up on us.  I’m sure that she experienced a bit of anxiety for that short period of time, but then she remembered who she is in Christ and that God really is looking after her.  He was with her when she got up on that stage and belted out, “Your Grace is Enough.”  This was a double blessing given the nature of the conflicts that I’ve experienced as an employee of the school system. 

Now that we are a month or so into our summer break, I find it odd that she would come to me and say that she really thinks she ought to switch schools now.  We had not talked about moving her for a while and after lots of consideration and prayer during her last round of anxiety, it had become clear that she really needed to stay where she is and deal with her fears.  I had given her the option to switch a few months ago and had told her that if things weren’t better by a certain time that we would transfer her to her old school and she could finish out her elementary career there.  But then, she got better.  Healing had taken place and there was no need to fix what wasn’t broken.  And so, it makes absolutely no sense at this point to even consider moving her, yet this is what a certain person in her life who shall remain nameless presented to me as something that “must” be done.  A person who is about fifty percent involved in what she does and really doesn’t know what he is talking about.  A person who, at the first invitation to do anything that might bring him pleasure or relaxation, would drop all commitments to both faith and family to go and have that good time.  But I’m not trying to judge. 😉  

This person is under the mistaken impression that when my daughter is having problems at school, she runs directly to me and that my presence in her school is a hinderance to her progress.  Well, it isn’t like that.  Though she experienced a few difficulties, she generally stayed in her class once she made it there and I rarely saw her throughout any given day unless it was her class’s turn to visit the library.  Her grades were fine and her behavior, other than the clingy stuff she was going through was excellent.  She was a good student overall.  The funny thing here is that he wasn’t the first one to come at me with this ridiculous theory.  I’m not sure if they know each other or what, but when this was originally presented, I had to put my foot down and say, “Once and for all, my daughter is upset about the divorce and she’s trying to sort out her feelings.  It isn’t going to happen overnight and you don’t have the whole story so you need not judge the way I deal with things.”  And now, long after the problem has been dealt with, to him, I add, “I have given our problems to God to deal with and He is guiding my decisions, not your oversized ego and the guilt you carry for not doing your part.”  You can’t just peek into a situation and think you’ve got the perfect solution when you don’t even know if there’s a problem.  That’s what people seem to think they can do.  They create drama where there is none so that they can swoop in and try to solve it with the latest solution they read in a magazine or heard on Dr. Phil.  I halfway expect one of them to come up to me sometime soon and say, “Did you know you had a baby?”  That’s how dumb this is.  Um, yes, she’s seven.  And, yes, I’ve asked God’s permission to slap you in the back of your head for that.   

If you don’t live my life, don’t try to tell me how to do it.  God knows I have some suggestions for how others should be solving their problems, but I know enough to realize that I cannot solve the problems that God has given other people to deal with.  This is especially true if those people aren’t even attempting to deal with them.  Is everyone following me on this?  We cannot look at another person’s life from the outside and completely understand what they are doing or why they are doing it…it just isn’t possible.  We should not sit around and think about ways to interfere in things that have no real bearing on us other than to bolster our own sagging egos.     If you feel guilty for not doing something in your own life, don’t look for an opening in my situation to insert your wonderful insights into if the only reason you are doing it is to deflect attention from your own shortcomings.  Remove that plank from your own eye before you go poking around in mine.

The bottom line here is that when things are going well in someone else’s life and we get an itch to see if we can fix that for them, we need to understand that we are interfering with God’s plan for that person.  I can’t make someone love me, I can’t make someone do what I want them to do, I can’t even make someone think for themselves if they don’t want to.  I know, I’ve tried.  Only God has the power to make changes like that in an individual.  I could sit around every day looking for ways to control other people’s lives and try to ensure that they never do anything that I don’t agree with or that would make me feel like I wasn’t doing enough in my own life.  I could do that, but I don’t see the point.  If I’m not doing enough, that’s definitely my problem and it’s between me and God.  As for what I don’t agree with, well I could stay busy with that every minute of the day, but in reality, it won’t matter.  Besides, if I watch closely, I’ll see that God is already taking care of these things.  I don’t have to create tension or drama where there isn’t any.  All that does is bring me pain and I have opted out of all that.  But like everyone else, I still get the occasional piece of junk mail.     

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