How to Find Joy When Feeling Helpless

Have you seen one of those grocery shopping carts that a toddler can “drive”? Take a moment and imagine that you are the toddler who is climbing into a shopping cart “car” for the very first time.

Keep in mind that every time you got in the family car, your parents would put you in the back seat and strap you into a car seat. As you traveled around, you would look at the driver in the seat in front of you and wish that you were big enough to actually drive. Then one day, on the way to the grocery store, your mom announces that you will actually get to drive a car at the store.

You are all excited. Your lifelong dream is finally going to be fulfilled. When you get to the store, your mother finds a “car cart,” and you get to slip in behind the wheel. You begin to drive that grocery cart up one aisle and down another. Everything goes great as long as mom turns the grocery cart when you turn the wheel. When you turn left, the cart goes left, and when you turn the wheel right, the cart goes right. The problem comes when you turn the steering wheel one way, and the cart goes off in a different direction. Ugh! You no longer feel like you are in control, and you sense a feeling of helplessness.

We smile when we see a toddler clutching that steering wheel and pretending to drive. We know that it isn’t connected to anything. The driving that really happens is done by the person holding on to the back of the cart.

Could it be that we all look a little like that toddler to God as we attempt to manipulate life’s circumstances? We all like to think we can handle the problems that life throws at us. As long as it appears that we are making life work the way we want it to, we feel that we are in control. When our expectations in life are not met, though, we are hit with the realization that we are not really in control after all. That makes us feel helpless..

Maybe it’s a relationship that has gone sour, and we can’t fix it. Sometimes a loved one is suffering, and we stand by helplessly, wishing we could do something to make it better. Lots of things in life tend to remind us that we are not ultimately in control, and we don’t like that feeling.

This problem of helplessness has not escaped God’s attention. In fact, a dark time can be a tunnel leading us to a place of peace and joy. . What? Yes, when you and I are completely helpless, then we are in a place where we can realize just how much we need God. The truth is that God has designed us to be completely dependent on Him for everything. That includes food, water, sleep, and even air. Although that truth crushes our pride, it also opens the door to a joyful and wonderful way to live.

That new life begins when we see ourselves as helpless sinners in need of God’s forgiveness. “For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly” (Romans 5:6). Notice how God proved His love for helpless sinners: “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him.” (Romans 5:8–9).

That is not all what God does for us. The Lord then actually makes us members of His family. Followers of Jesus “… have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, ‘Abba! Father!’ The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him” (Romans 8:15–17).

We can choose to live independent of Christ, or we can choose to live dependent on Him, trusting completely in Jesus, Someone who is so much larger than we are and Someone who never makes mistakes. There is a huge contrast between these two choices. Jesus reminds us that, “… apart from Me you can do