In Your Hands - Jesse Jorgensen

Last weekend our sermons at both campuses were about worry. Both sermons are really good (check them out here for Steve at East Hills and here for Josh at the Grove). Steve talked about how when he's really stressed, he'll draw a basket, and then write all of the different things he is worried about down above the basket, as if he was putting his worries into the basket, and then he'll work on remembering that those things are in God's basket now. Josh talked about how worrying is trying to take control of things we can't control, and that when we worry it is proof that we are afraid to surrender. Peace, Josh said, is realizing we are not in control and that that's okay. Peace is a result, not a goal.

After hearing Steve's sermon Saturday night, Jesse posted this video. Sunday morning, I listened to the song about a dozen times (before I heard Josh's sermon). It hit hard. Have you ever had dreams that you wanted to cling to more than anything because you feel like they are God's plan, and by golly they need to happen? After all, this is something that I feel like God Himself has promised, so why wouldn't they be coming true RIGHT NOW? And how could this thing that is currently happening that feels so contrary to that dream possibly be from God, and it's screwing up the PLAN. My plan. For how this thing that God has promised is going to happen.

I can't begin to imagine what Moses's mother is feeling when she lays her baby into the river. In a basket she feels like God has told her to weave, floating her infant son away from her. The pain. The terror. The fear. She had no control. None. And instead of worrying about what was going to happen in the thing she couldn't control, she releases the basket to God.

And great things, great things, come from that. An entire people group is rescued from slavery, led to their promised land, given covenants from God...

If I think through the different promises, covenants even, that are in the old testament, I notice a pattern. God makes a promise. People look at the promise, try to figure out how that could possibly happen, doubt the steps along the way, get in the way by making their own choices, and then eventually God shows up and proves otherwise. See, God rarely gets to His promise in the way we would expect. I can't imagine that Joseph in jail (Genesis 39) was really thinking that "oh yes, I see it how you're going to make that dream come true". That isn't the point. The point is that God will make good on His promises.

So. Weave the basket. Put your dreams in. And then put it in God's hand. Lay it down in the river, because there is noone like You, God.

Note: Jesse explains some about this song before where this video here will start, if you want to listen to his explanation about the song, just rewind :-)

I've woven the basket,
I've thought out the plan
Put my dreams in
I've woven the basket,
I've thought out the plan
Put my dreams in

Now I put it in Your hands
I put it in Your hands

My hands have been full
Of all that You gave
I held them close to my chest
I gripped them so tight
As though they were mine
Now I lay it all down

I put it in Your hands
I put it in Your hands

Who is like the Lord
Who is like the Lord
There's noone like You, Lord
Who is like the Lord
Who is like the Lord
There's noone like You, Lord

I put it in Your hands
I put it in Your hands

I've woven the basket
I've thought out the plan
Put my dreams in