Don’t Try to Change What You Cannot Change

“God give us grace to accept with serenity the things we cannot change…”

—REINHOLD NIEBUHR, “THE SERENITY PRAYER,” PT. 1

Do you know how God controls the clouds and makes his lightning flash… how the clouds hang poised, those wonders of him who is perfect in knowledge?

—Job 37:15–16 NIV

Trying to do what you can’t only produces frustration and feelings of failure. We must learn what we can do and what we aren’t able to do. We are partners with God and, in a partnership, each party involved has a part. The partnership works best when each one does what they are good at.

I tried to change many things about me and around me that really only God could change. I tried to change my husband, my children, my neighbor, myself, and my circumstances. I kept failing, but I always had a new project I was “working” on. I said I was trusting God, but the truth was I trusted myself more. God’s ways and timing are not the same as ours, so when we get tired of waiting, we usually take matters into our own hands. It does not cause God to hurry and do what we want Him to do, but it actually ends up making our wait longer and more frustrating.

It is important to know what we can do and then do it, but it is equally important to know what we cannot do. Like the old saying says, “Don’t spin your wheels and go nowhere.” You can simplify your life by no longer trying to do what you can’t. We do not have to be superheroes. Give yourself permission to be who you are—an imperfect human being who needs help!