When You Can’t Control the Outcome: Learning to Trust God With Your Worries

 By Michaelle Moran

“So humble yourselves under the mighty power of God, and at the right time he will lift you up in honor. Give all your worries and cares to God, for He cares about you.” 1 Peter 5:7 (NLT)

Did you know that an adult hippopotamus weighs anywhere from 2,800 to more than 9,000 pounds, depending on its sex? Now, imagine carrying even the lighter female—a mere 2,800 pounds—on your back all day, every day. No human being could carry that amount of physical weight for one second, let alone 24/7.

Yet some of us are carrying the emotional equivalent every single day.

Here’s what that looks like:

We’re watching our children having to live with the consequences of their choices. And if not their choices, then the effects of living in a fallen world. We may even be watching them live differently than we hoped they would.

We’re watching our grandchildren navigate challenges they never chose—a diagnosis that may make life harder or changes brought about by their parents’ divorce or an absentee parent.

We’re watching friends face illnesses and life-altering circumstances. Didn’t we just attend our senior prom last year?

We’re experiencing the realities of having celebrated many birthdays—health problems and the growing awareness that we or our spouse will one day have to live without the other.

We find ourselves living in a world that seems completely foreign from the one we grew up in… and felt safe in.

In all these situations, one truth applies: we are powerless to control the outcome.

But I can tell you that being powerless to control the outcome has never stopped me from ruminating over these situations until I am so weighed down by the sadness, hopelessness, and anxiety of them all that I may as well be carrying a rotund, semi-aquatic, not-so-cute animal on my back. Either way, I’m not sleeping.

Let me be very real with you for a minute. I have believed in Jesus Christ since I was a little girl. Although I’ve never read the entire Bible, I am well aware that the Bible tells us not to worry or fear many, many times. And I understand and believe that God is sovereign over everything. BUT, I still worry about the people I love and situations I can’t control. I still have fears and anxieties.

You too?

Well then, I wish this next paragraph was a two-easy-steps-to-trust-God-with-your-deepest-worries-and-be-joyful-forever kind of paragraph. But if it were that easy, I probably wouldn’t be writing this, and you probably wouldn’t be reading it. Remember, in John 16:33, Jesus told us plainly that we will have trouble in this world. What we do when we encounter this certain trouble is going to take more than two steps… and, at least for me, it’s not a one-and-done kind of thing either.

So here’s what I’m learning:

The New Living Translation of 1 Peter 5:7 says, “Give all your worries and cares to God, for He cares about you.”

Well, that’s not so easy to do just because Scripture tells us to do it, is it? Speaking for myself, no, it is not. But what if our struggle to release all our worries and cares to God is revealing we don’t fully trust Him with the outcome?

Let me repeat that: What if our struggle to release all our worries and cares to God is revealing we don’t fully trust Him with the outcome?

When I read a similar statement in the commentary in my Bible, my heart broke. It broke because I had to admit to myself—God already knew—that I haven’t fully trusted Him with the people I love and the situations that seem dire to me. Like somehow I can do a better job providing for their needs than He can, or somehow worrying about them is the only choice I have. I can almost hear you laughing at the ridiculousness of that. It’s okay, I did too… sort of.

But my heart broke for another reason. The last part of verse 7 says, “for He cares about you.” The Greek construction of this phrase is essentially “because it matters to Him concerning you.” The emphasis is personal: you are His concern.

I am God’s concern. You are God’s concern. Our children are God’s concern. Our grandchildren are God’s concern. Our friends are God’s concern.

Of course we’re going to be concerned about our children and grandchildren, and our dear friends, but that concern should never take the shape of a 2,800-pound hippopotamus because the Creator of the world is concerned about them too.… and only He knows what they truly need and has the power to provide it according to His will and purpose for their lives.

I mentioned earlier that trusting God with our deepest worries is not a two-step, one-and-done kind of thing. We need to keep trusting God with those worries, which means some days we may have to hand them back to Him again and again. Verse 6 helps us understand why.

Peter tells us to “humble [our]selves under the mighty power of God.” Part of humbling ourselves is releasing the outcomes we can't control and acknowledging that we were never the ones in control to begin with. Ouch.

I've been carrying the weight of several outcomes I have no control over. I need to humble myself under God’s mighty power instead of the mighty weight of a hippopotamus.

And I hope you do too because you and I—and they—are God’s concern.