How can I know that I am crossing the line from my responsibility in the current situation to taking ownership of God’s responsibility?

Think with me, how much grace will God give me to take his job from him? Do I really think that he needs to handle his part?

Obviously, he wants me to stick to my part. When I do I he gives me plenty of grace and I feel no tension, but without him I can do nothing and when I try to do his part I become stressed.

I knew a man who knew that he was a bad driver. He would stop and accelerate and turn much too fast. So he purchased a sensitive farm bell and set it on the front seat and it was always clanging. When he learned to drive without clanging, he had become a much smoother and safer driver and did not wear out his car so rapidly.

I find it to be an invariable rule that when I feel any uncomfortable emotion I AM CROSSING THE LINE INTO GOD’S PART of the current task. I should immediately let go and rest. It is true that a little depression, anxiety, overwhelmedness, self contempt, guilt, loneliness, or anger are healthy if they identify a need and push me to cry out to God and then do my part then go away once they have done their job. But most of my uncomfortable feeling come from being hesitant to obey or from my failure to let it go after I have done my part. Therefore, when these well up, I can be confident that I am grabbing God’s part again. So I stop and ask, “What part of my current focus does not belong to me? Am I focused on the past, on the future, on elsewhere, on controlling others insides, on doing things perfectly?”

My brain comes with a manufacturers manual. If I use it according to the rules, I will have plenty of neurotransmitters to stay calm, focused and motivated. Break the rules and there is no point in complaining to the manufacturer that my car won’t run on water or my brain won’t function when abused. He says that I must cast ALL my cares on him. Why don’t I? Do I not believe that he cares? He says to take no thought for the morrow. If I don’t, do I think that he can’t handle it or that He doesn’t know what the morrow will bring. My creator says that it is vain to do anything that He has not asked me to do and if He has asked me then I should arise in the morning at a reasonable time, enjoy my work and get a good night’s sleep. Psalms 127. By getting up too early, being miserable in my work, staying up too late; I am accusing him of being unable to handle it without me and of taking advantage of me.

MY PART: To move my body members according to a growing sense of God’s principles in action.

HIS PART: EVERYTHING ELSE! Restoring the years that the locust has eaten. Making my feeble efforts produce fruit in the present. Building his church. Securing the future. Taking care of loved ones far away. In short, his part is all the RESULTS.

Using the ‘clanging bell’ of my extra tension , I become aware of my need to let go and let God and am learning to rest in