Handing Over the Reins

In September 1990, my friend Nancy approached the executive director of Camp Berea with an idea: why didn’t Berea host a fall retreat for the women of New England? The director thought it an excellent concept and asked Nancy to run it. Their first retreat was attended by 185 women and was a rousing success. Over time, Nancy and her team creatively worked to make each annual retreat better and better. Now over 400 women attend the weekends each fall.

After 18 years, Nancy felt it was time for fresh leadership. She resigned her position and handed over the reigns. A year later, this past September, Nancy and I attended the retreat together as part of the crowd. I was curious to see how she would feel, sitting in the audience and watching someone else run the show. Would she struggle with not being at the center of it all as she once was? I suspected it would be especially hard to hand over your baby after it has been yours for so very long.

Not even close. She assured me in a recent letter: “Stepping away as I did was hard, but being able to go back was amazing and peaceful. Seeing where God has taken the retreats after all these years by using me for His glory was very rewarding, and knowing how God took me, molded me, and used me in the lives of others is humbling at best.”

My friend Nancy has taught me that giving up the reins is easy enough when you understand you were never really in charge in the first place.

It can be a wonderful feeling to hand over the reins. The fact is we can live our whole lives this way– trusting God with the control, and just enjoying the task before us. It is what Jesus offered to the crowd when He said, “Come to me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” Jesus stands ready to take every burden from us. His shoulders are that big.

Yet we resist the offer. While I gladly laid the burden of my sin on Christ at the moment of my salvation, I find other parts of my life are not so easily given over to Him.

Peter wrote his readers: “Cast all your anxiety upon him, because He cares for you.” Phillips’ paraphrased translation of this verse catches the essence of Peter’s meaning: “You can throw the whole weight of your anxieties upon him, for you are his personal concern.”

Handing over the reins is an exercise in trust. The God who knows the number of hairs on my head, my thoughts before I think them, my future before I can live it, wants me to acknowledge His care and power. I must believe He is who He says He is and that He will wisely carry out every circumstance according to His will.

When anxiety for our circumstances overcomes us, we have taken on a burden that we were never meant to carry.

When my children were babies, we would often take walks. Adam used to like “pushing” the stroller which contained the baby twins. Of course, he never really took control–who would relinquish responsibility for two babies to a four year-old?–so my hands never left the handles. After a while, he would tire of pushing, and wander off to walk alongside his brother Daniel. His departure did not make a bit of difference in how much effort I continued to put into maneuvering the stroller (in fact, things got a little easier!) The responsibility and control he thought his were in reality only an illusion for him.

As we struggle under the burden of difficulty, we eventually understand very little is under our control. We are then driven to God, who holds all power in His hands and waits patiently for us to give up the reins. But the ironic truth is that the control was never in our hands in the first place. When we finally hand over our burden to Him, we are free from our illusions of responsibility. He knows what needs to be done, the best way to accomplish his purposes, and has our best in mind. In our trust, we can be at rest.

“Be strong and let your heart take courage, all you who hope in the Lord.” Psalm 31:24