When You Hear, "There's Nothing You Can Do..."

(photo courtesy of fanpop.com)

When you hear the news, “There’s nothing you can do.....”

We all go through all sorts of trying times whether our days are many or few. We’ve all suffered heartbreak of some kind or another. But, it can be overwhelming to hear the news that – “there’s nothing you can do...”

To some extent, we all want to feel a degree of control over the situations that arise in our lives. Sometimes we can remain very much in control and face a hard situation head on, then look back and marvel at how we made it through. Other times we completely fall apart and rely on others to carry us through, or we crawl through, kicking and crying. The times we rely on others are sometimes a blur, and when the one(s) we’re depending on break or bare their weak side, we find ourselves helping them deal with the ache in their heart, too.

No one ever said life was going to be easy, as a matter of fact, Jesus Himself said that in this world we will have tribulations, but to be of good cheer, because He has overcome the world. (John 16:33)

A quoted scripture can seem to increase your load. We can hear it as a resounding chime, bouncing echoes of our weakness around in our head, telling us we’re not supposed to be stressing or worrying or crying, because God’s got it all in control – when it doesn’t feel like anyone at all even knows what control in our situation would look like. When the peace doesn’t come, we may get angry and blame God for letting us down, or resent Him for “making” us go through this heartache in the first place.

When I heard those words trumpeted into my inner-most being, the proclaimed and declared-out-loud the news that there’s nothing I can do, that there’s nothing anyone can do...I went limp. At that moment I felt as though all the air in the room was vacuumed away, leaving my heart racing. The instant before that profoundly truthful news, I felt frustrated by my own perceived helplessness. And now? Now, it was confirmed. There is absolutely nothing I can do. In this instance of revelation, I had to surrender to the fact that control was no longer in my court, that, in fact, it was never within my grasp to control this situation at all, and that I would never be capable of changing that reality.

There is nothing I can do; there is nothing you can do – but give ourselves completely over to the love that brought us into existence in the first place.

If you know me at all, it’s not often I’m found speechless, though it’s easy to bring a tear to my eyes. The floodgates opened and I was shaking, without no words in my mouth.

Sitting in my sin, the most fatal of all conditions, desperate and seeking a way of escape, God announced to my heart, “There is nothing you can do….”

“For by grace are ye saved, through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.” ~ Ephesians 2:8-9 (KJV)

What greater cause for rejoicing can there possibly be?