God can create the world. Make the sun rise. Answer prayer. Move mountains.
He can provide wisdom. Offer hope. Restore moral sanity.
He can guide the confused. Comfort the lonely. Liberate the oppressed. Embrace the stigmatized. Topple rulers. Bless the humble.
Part seas. Calm storms. Invent beetles.
Bring justice. Forgive guilt. Redeem the past. Secure the future.
Make life. Give breath. Feed sparrows. Clothe lilies. Know everything. Be everywhere. Love everybody. Give the knowledge of his will and the power to carry it out.
He can run the show.
None of these statements are glib promises that we can have the circumstances we want if we just believe enough. They are Reality 101: There is a God. It is not me.
This is not a book about how you can triumph over your problems. This is a book about a way of life to follow when you can’t.
Kate Bowler is a brilliant scholar and writer who was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer as a young wife and mom, kept alive six months at a time through immunotherapy. She writes of how she fought to be in control from childhood and doesn’t know how to stop:
Control is a drug, and we are all hooked. … When I was little, my dad would read stories from Greek mythology, and I loved one most of all—that prideful King Sisyphus, who was doomed to roll a boulder up an impossibly steep hill only to have it roll down again. He would discover for all eternity that not every burden can be shouldered. Yes, I would think, learning nothing. But at least he kept trying.
This is not a book about making it to the top. It’s about the importance of hitting bottom, of handing the boulder over to someone else.
When we try to run the show, we only make things worse. We will need help that comes from beyond ourselves. There is another ancient story about another King who rolled a stone away—only when he rolled it, it stayed rolled.
Powerlessness and pain will be helpful in this way of life, because although it is not complicated, it is demanding and humiliating, and it requires a willing heart. You don’t have to be desperate, but it helps. A failure in business. Or neglected or abused at the hand of a parent. Betrayed. Facing a broken marriage. Cancer. Loneliness. Addiction. Depression.
John Ortberg and John Mark Comer, Steps: A Guide to Transforming Your Life When Willpower Isn’t Enough (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale Refresh, 2025), 4–5.
