Straightening Out Crooked Thinking

In the last year or so, I began patting myself on the back whenever I incorporated the phrase, “It is what it is,” into my life.

For an over-thinker of things, the resignation in “it is what it is” was a great coping mechanism, allowing me to surrender to situations I felt powerless to change. By verbalizing my acceptance of the status quo, I thought I was growing. I thought I was learning to lay aside analyzing everything and avoid getting sucked into the vortex of my own circular thinking. I even spiritualized my new strategy by saying this new outlook helped me to put away worries and trust God--anything for peace. But what it actually birthed was an internal passivity, a euphamism for lack of faith.

This week, in a response to the well-known Beth Moore study “Believing God,” Chel at Abiding Branch posted an observation that challenged me:

Do you ever feel trapped in the land of “It is what it is?” Boy, I have so been there. I have moved from angry to depressed to “it is what it is.” And quite frankly, eh hem, I don’t like the definition of ‘is.’ Seriously, the ‘is’ is not working for me, and the unbelief had to go!”

My initial response: Unbelief? Really? Ouch.

Chel recognized that this laissez-faire attitude is tantamount to saying, “This is beyond hope. This is my lot. God is in some of the details, perhaps, but we can’t expect Him to move in all circumstances ….”

As the newly-fired neurons in my brain began connecting all of the dots, I could see places in my life where I had decided there was little to no hope, and I had grown faithless, weary, and even unbelieving—not unbelieving that God could change things but that He would change things.

Case in point: praying for my close friend, Diane, who has been given a very discouraging cancer–related prognosis. I do not think I need to delineate for you the anxiety, fear and sadness my friends and I experience as we try to walk with Diane through this ordeal. In fact, in many ways, she’s faring better than we are.

Concerning the prognosis, circumstances appear to say, “It is what it is.” Faith says, “But God is always bigger than the apparent ‘what is.’”

God is up to the challenge of hearing our very specific prayers. In fact, He wants us to believe that He exists, and He wants us to believe in Him:

But without faith no one can please God. We must believe that God is real and that He rewards everyone who searches for Him (Hebrews 11:6).

We are certain that God will hear our prayers when we ask for what pleases Him. And if we know that God listens when we pray, we are sure that our prayers have already been answered (1 John 5:14).

I cannot foresee the way Diane’s situation is going to resolve, but I can trust in the character of the God whom Diane and you and I know and love.

To conclude, the only one who has the final word on “It is what it is,” is God, the worker of mysterious ways, which are His ways, and way above our own.


Questions: When you examine the chain of faith that has been forged in your life, do you see any weak links? (Marital issues, wayward children, chronic illness, addictions, etc.)

What step can you take today to grow out of that passivity?



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