There are a lot of jobs out there that I'm completely
unqualified for. And look, I know that might
shock some of you. Or, well, at least that I
would admit it. But it definitely is true. For
instance, you should never trust me to restore
a priceless Renaissance oil painting. You should
definitely never trust me to style your hair.
Which is completely fine, because at this stage
of my life, my own head is less of a style choice
and more of a quiet testimony to simplicity.
And you should absolutely never trust my estimate
on how long it takes to actually get out of the
house with children. Every parent listening right
now knows that phrase, hey guys, we are leaving
in five minutes, has absolutely nothing to do
with linear time. It's not a timeline. It's a
prophecy of impending suffering. But there's
another job that I'm spectacularly unqualified
for. And yet, for some reason, I keep on trying
to apply for it anyway. The job of Holy Spirit.
Now, obviously, I would never say that out loud.
I never put that on a resume. Cody Hudson. Husband.
Father. Coffee drinker. Assistant to Holy Spirit.
That sounds entirely ridiculous. But functionally,
in the quiet, messy corners of my daily life,
Man, I've tried. I've tried to manufacture conviction
in people. I've tried to force clarity, micromanage
spiritual growth, and aggressively argue someone
into wisdom. I've tried to sell people on sanctification
like I was a high -pressure salesman trying to
close a deal before the end of the month. And
let's face it, theological debates and social
media comment sections are always such an absolute
dumpster fire. Nobody logs into Facebook. on
Thursday morning thinking, you know what I hope
happens today? I hope a total stranger with a
blurry profile picture from 2014 aggressively
corrects me into deep spiritual maturity. And
yet, we keep pressing. We try to protect the
people around us from making any possible bad
decision. We exhaust ourselves trying to secure
outcomes that only God has the authority to secure.
And the trickiest part of the whole thing, is
that we rarely call it control. We call it care.
We call it deep concern. We call it leadership
or discipleship or even parenting. Or we use
that beautifully wrapped, incredibly dangerous
phrase, I'm just trying to help. But if we're
willing to be brutally honest with ourselves
over this cup of coffee, sometimes I'm just trying
to help actually means I'm incredibly uncomfortable
with how little control I actually have in this
situation. So I'm going to push harder until
something bends. And that's where this gets incredibly
hard. Because the people we are most tempted
to manage are almost always the people we love
the most. It's our kids, our spouse, the friend
we are losing sleep over, the family member we've
been praying for until our knees are sore. We
see them walking straight towards a wall of pain.
And everything inside us wants to grab them by
the shoulders and scream, please, for the love
of all that is holy, stop making your life harder
than it has to be. Look, there's absolutely a
time for warning. There's a place for hard conversations,
for boundaries, for parenting, for correction.
But there is a very real line we cross where
love subtly mutates into grasping for control.
Where faithful concern turns into crushing pressure.
Where we step out of our actual assignment and
start trying to do God's job for him. And I think
we just need to say it plainly today. If the
Holy Spirit hasn't resigned, then you and I can
officially stop applying for his job. Welcome
to an extra shot of Grace on the Ground. A part
of the show where the mic probably should have
been turned off, but we kept talking anyways.
This is a bonus space for some deeper theology,
raw stories, and a level of caffeinated commentary
that I should probably apologize for in advance.
So grab your coffee, take a deep breath, and
let's get into it. In our main episode, we spent
a lot of time talking about what it looks like
to let go of the outcome. And the big takeaway
was pretty simple. The outcome was never actually
yours to carry in the first place. Your job is
just obedience. But today, I want to press a
little deeper into this. Because if we're being
completely transparent, we don't just try to
control outcomes. Sometimes, we try to control
people. And again, it's rarely in some obvious,
harsh, villainous way. Most of us aren't walking
around the house twirling a cartoon mustache,
thinking to ourselves, Excellent! Who can I emotionally
manipulate before lunch today? Well, at least
I really hope not. For those of you around my
age, it's not like we have Pinky walking along
beside us asking us, Gee, Brain, what are we
going to do tonight? While we look back and reply,
The same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try
to take over the world. Yeah. We aren't really
plotting global domination. Usually our control
looks a lot more respectable than that. It masks
itself as intense concern. It looks like constant
helpful reminders. It looks like double checking
to make absolutely sure they really understood
what you meant the first time. Which, if you're
anything like me, usually means saying the exact
same thing six different ways and then circling
back to it a few hours later or a few minutes
later just to make sure the conviction landed
properly. You know, very casually, very healthy.
Definitely not exhausting for every single person
inside a three mile radius. But that's exactly
what control does. It keeps pushing because it
cannot physically rest until the other person
responds the way we think they should. And the
hard sobering truth is this. I can speak the
truth. I can love someone deeply. I can warn
them carefully. Discipline them faithfully. And
parent them intentionally. But I cannot force
another human heart to repent. I cannot make
another person believe or mature or love God.
Only God can do that. And the second I forget
that boundary, I don't become more faithful of
a leader. I just become a whole lot heavier.
In John 16, Jesus drops a line about the Holy
Spirit that should be a massive relief for us.
We usually treat it like a cooperative challenge.
He says, when he comes, he will convict the world
concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.
Notice, Jesus didn't add a footnote that said,
unless you have a really killer three -point
argument, in which case, I'll step aside and
let you close the deal. Conviction is the exclusive
property of the Spirit. And if we look at that
closer, At why that is, it changes everything.
True biblical conviction isn't just making someone
feel bad or forcing them to change a behavior.
It's a supernatural resurrection, a complete
shift in what a human heart loves and hates.
With enough pressure or guilt, I can force behavioral
compliance. I can make my kid clean their room,
but I cannot force them to love cleanliness.
I can speak the truth, but I cannot make that
truth beautiful to someone else's soul. Yet when
the spirit's timing doesn't match our frantic
schedule, we try to take over his job. And honestly,
we look absolutely ridiculous. We basically turn
into a human lie detector test. We say something
spiritual to our spouse or to our friend or child,
and then we just sit there, staring at their
face, tracking their eye movements. like a CIA
agent, waiting to see if their conviction progress
bar has finished loading in their brain. We think,
I used my deep, serious, you know, real important
voice. You should definitely be weeping tears
of repentance by now. When that doesn't work,
we reach into our own deeply flawed toolbox for
fleshly substitutes. The heavy sigh. The cold
shoulder. The weaponized silence. or the classic
strategy of repeating the exact same sentence
40 times until their spirit finally breaks, which
could be categorized as auditory torture, repetitive
interrogation, or sensory bombardment, which
are all tactics that have been used by, you know,
friendly groups like the KGB and the CIA. But
you cannot yell a blind eye open. You cannot
pressure a dead heart to loving Jesus. We are
called to be faithful truth tellers, not sovereign
heart changers. There is a profound freedom in
remembering that you are only responsible to
put the truth on the table. You are completely
unqualified to force their heart to bow before
it. In 1 Corinthians 3, Paul drops a massive
reality check for our inner control freaks. I
planted, Apollo swattered. But God gave the growth.
I love planting and watering. But I want growth
on my timeline. I wish sanctification had an
app on my phone with a progress bar and a weekly
text. Your kid is 54 % sanctified. Keep it up.
Instead, when people grow too slowly for our
liking, we do the dumbest thing possible. We
try to force fruit by squeezing the branch harder.
Think about how insane that looks. If you saw
your neighbor aggressively squeezing an apple
tree, screaming, Produce! You'd lock your doors
and call the cops. Yet, we do this spiritually
all the time with nagging and frantic anxiety.
But you cannot squeeze maturity out of a human
soul. You can plant with consistency. You can
water with prayer. But you cannot force the harvest.
Stop asking your obedience to carry sovereign
power. Do your job and trust the only one who
gives the growth. Since we've used the verse
about the Lord building the house several episodes,
we want to look at a different verse today that
gets some of the same idea across. Proverbs 21
31. It drops a different kind of reality check.
The horse is made ready for the day of battle,
but victory This is the perfect divide between
our job and God's job. Our job is to prepare
the horse. You feed it, brush it, saddle it,
you ride it into the field. That's faithful responsibility.
But you do not control the victory. The problem
is, we don't just want to prep the horse. We
want to guarantee the win. So we lie awake at
2 a .m. mentally fighting battles for our kids,
micromanaging our spouse's attitude, and rehearsing
arguments from three days ago so we look smarter.
It's a great strategy if your goal is an ulcer.
When you pull the night shift trying to mentally
manipulate every outcome, you aren't being faithful.
You're trying to run the universe. Do your job.
Prep the horse. Do the work. And then go to sleep.
God's got the battle covered. Our assistant to
the Holy Spirit resume shows up all over our
daily lives, but it usually bottlenecks in three
specific places. In marriage, we try to sanctify
our spouse by pressure. A helpful correction
here, a little tone there, or the classic weaponized,
I'm fine, which is clearly not fine, but is apparently
supposed to function. As a profound spiritual
parable, the Holy Spirit never asked you to be
a second -rate version of him in your spouse's
life. In parenting, we confuse shepherding with
controlling. Shepherding leads your kids towards
Christ with open hands. Control tries to guarantee
the response with clenched fists. And let's be
honest, our kids can smell the difference from
a mile away. in ministry and friendship. We think
if we just push enough, explain enough, and follow
up aggressively enough, we can keep someone from
wandering. But some lessons cannot be pressure
forced into a heart. Trusting God isn't hard
in theory. It's only hard when someone you love
is moving slower than you want. And you have
to find out if you actually actually believe
God is better at being God than you think you
are. Here's the ultimate grace in all of this.
You are not the Holy Spirit. And that isn't an
insult. It's an absolute prison break. God isn't
sitting in heaven disappointed that you aren't
omnipotent. He never expected you to hold the
universe together in the first place. For some
of us, realizing this is going to feel like taking
off a 50 -pound tactical backpack we forgot we
were wearing. We've been carrying our child's
salvation like it depends on our perfect phrasing
or our friend's repentance like it depends on
our sheer intensity. God looks at you and says,
put it down. Letting go does not mean you care
less. It means you trust more. You still show
up. You still love. You still tell the truth,
but you do it as a servant, not a savior. You're
the parent, not the producer of growth. You're
the spouse, not the sanctifier. It's much lighter
to obey when you aren't trying to do God's job
at the same time. This week, resign from the
job you were never given. I'm not saying to quit
parenting, volunteering, or having hard conversations.
Just stop trying to be God. Ask yourself three
quick questions. Who am I trying to spiritually
manage? Not love or serve. Manage. Who are you
constantly trying to fix or steer? What is my
actual assignment? To pray? To speak truth? Or,
and I say this very gently, to shut up for a
minute and let God work. What am I trying to
steal from God? conviction, salvation, the ending?
Hand it over and pray a simple prayer. Lord,
make me faithful in my role and let me out of
yours. His shoulders can carry the universe.
Yours cannot. If the Holy Spirit hasn't resigned,
stop applying for his job. Love deeply, speak
the truth, and teach your kids with patience,
but stop carrying the outcomes. That is God's
work, and he has a perfect track record. Thanks
for joining me for this extra shot of Grace in
the Grind. If this one stepped on your toes today,
welcome to the club. My toes were already throbbing
before I hit record. Share this episode with
someone who needs to drop a heavy backpack this
week, but do it gently. Do not text this link
to your spouse or your teenager as a passive
-aggressive hint. That is not ministry. That's
just an ambush. Until next time, keep your coffee
strong and your fight stronger. The Spirit is
actively at work, and he doesn't need you to
steal his job to prove you care. We'll see you
in the next cut.