Can You Fix It?

Today I was asked to share the two most important lessons I have learned over the last twenty-eight years of ministry. The more I thought about the question the more I realized that the most important lessons that I have learned, I have learned in just the last few years, maybe even the last few months.

The last class I took in my masters program was a course in Crisis Counseling. The final was a mock counseling session with the professor being my client. After going through all the things I could think to ask and listen to I suggested some steps to deal with the imaginary crisis in her life. Later as we reviewed my exam the professor looked at me and said, "You are never going to be very good at this." How do you respond to that? Thank you maam, may I have another? Instead after the initial shock, I asked the pressing question "why?". She looked at me and said, "because you want to fix everything and some things just can't be fixed."

My beautiful wife had been telling that for years, when rather than just listening to what she was upset about, I started calculating a plan to fix it.

Over the last few years, I have been forced to deal with a lot of things I just couldn't fix. Even though I said the words, I kept trying to fix things. When I did give those things over to God, it wasn't very long until I started taking them back. I am finally getting it.

So when I was asked what the two biggest lessons were, I thought for a moment and said the first one has been a long hard lesson. Lesson one was "I can't fix everything."

Lesson two has just hit me in the last couple of days, "I can't fix anything!" Not the kind of things I have been trying so hard to fix. That's why Jesus had to die. He died to fix me, and everyone of us with sin debt so big that only he could fix it.

Eddie Carswell and Michael O'Brien have written a song that says, "So before the day slips away and want to stop and say I love you and be still and know that you are God!"

So now I am trying so hard, not to try so hard.