My wife is a very helpful person.
Sometimes too helpful.
We are a great team, and over the years, we’ve done a good job of dividing up responsibilities and taking ownership of our roles. For instance, she manages our calendar, our kids’ extracurricular activities, and our lawn care. I do the meal planning, grocery shopping, and most of the cooking.
Honestly, sometimes I think she carries the lion’s share. Which is the reason it frustrates me when she suggests a plan of action for something I’ve already spent a lot of time thinking about. She already has a lot on her plate, and it makes me sad that she spent even a little bit of energy worrying about something that I’ve got handled.
It feels like a waste of effort, and frankly, a little like a lack of trust in me.
It’s really just her trying to be helpful.
The other day I wondered…how often do I do that with God?
He’s already got a perfect plan in place, and here I come swooping in, saying, “Do you think we should maybe do this? What about if this happens? Have you thought about what we’ll do if this thing doesn’t work out?”
I’m human, so if Kim asks me one of these questions, there’s a better than zero chance that it proves useful.
But God is God, and He doesn’t need me checking His work, making sure things don’t fall through the cracks.
It’s good to pray for Him to intercede in the lives of people and situations around the world that I care about. But it probably frustrates Him when I spend an inordinate amount of time analyzing what He’s doing in the lives of friends, neighbors, and political leaders. And I bet it saddens Him to know that I’m wasting my time and energy on things He already has covered, when I have plenty of other things I am responsible for.
And I certainly don’t need the extra anxiety that I experience when I’m worrying about future problems that will never materialize or circumstances outside of my domain.
So.
This is me publicly admitting that maybe I need to spend a little less time “helping” God and more time minding my own business.
And when it comes to my wife, work on being grateful for all the help I can get.
🔨
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