Joyce Meyer writes: “If you want to have joy, you must stop trying to figure everything out. You must stop rolling your problems around in your mind. You have to quit anxiously searching for an answer to your situation, trying to find out what you should do about it.

We reason and try to figure things out, asking “Why, God, why?” and ”When, God, when?” We want to know the answer to our situations so we won’t have to trust God. We don’t want surprises; we want to be in control because we are afraid that things won’t turn out the way we want them to.

“Why, God, why?” and ”When, God, when?” are two questions that can keep us from enjoying the lives Jesus died to give us. Many times we don’t understand what God is doing, but that’s where trust comes in. Nobody says we have to know everything; no one ever told us we have to understand everything. We need to be satisfied in knowing the One who does know everything: God. We need to learn to trust Him, not ourselves. Stop overthinking things. Trust means not needing to know the whys and when’s in order to be at peace.

Joyce Meyer, Trusting God Day By Day, devotional reading for September 26