Stop asking Why me? Start stewarding what’s in front of you

“My internal condition is determined by my external circumstances — and that is exhausting.” — Josh Simcosky

Josh begins by naming a pattern most recovering people pleasers know too well: narrating life as a sequence of things done to you. Someone disappoints you, a plan collapses, a relationship shifts, and your first instinct is to ask, Why is this happening to me?

He flips that question. Instead of centering the circumstance, ask: God, what does faithfulness look like here? That one swap moves you from victimhood to stewardship.

What stewardship actually means

Most of us default to thinking stewardship is about money. Josh broadens it: time, relationships, body, gifts, attention, thoughts, emotions, pain, opportunities — all of these are entrusted to you.

The crucial distinction he insists on is between what happened to you and what you do with what happened. He uses Joseph as the biblical hinge: Joseph calls his brothers’ actions evil, but refuses to let their choices be sovereign over his life’s direction. God’s sovereignty doesn’t erase the harm; it rewrites who holds the final word.

“You do not control people, and you will never be able to change anyone.” — Josh Semkowski

This sentence is repeated twice for a reason. Josh says it like a lifeline: relinquish the impossible job of other people’s hearts and behaviors, and focus on what you actually steward — your words, your boundaries, your integrity, your obedience.

Practical questions that change the work you do

Josh offers concrete replacements for the usual, draining questions. Swap these and you immediately act from responsibility rather than reactivity:

• Instead of why is this happening to me, ask how can I steward this moment

• Instead of how do I get them to understand, ask have I communicated honestly and lovingly

• Instead of how do I make them change, ask what boundary am I responsible for

• Instead of what if everything goes wrong, ask what does walking in faith require of me today

Those questions return agency to you without denying pain. He’s clear: trials still hurt. Hebrews and James don’t promise comfort first; they describe faithful acting amid suffering.

Recovery is bigger than removing the trigger

Josh’s recovery lesson is sharp and practical: changing location, relationships, or removing a substance won’t fix patterns you bring with you. Sobriety can remove an input; recovery teaches you how to steward the life that remains.

He names the inventory work: look at your expectations, resentments, pride, people-pleasing, fear, avoidance. That is the work God asks you to steward — not to control outcomes, but to steward your response.

A small, useful freedom

God’s sovereignty, Josh argues, gives human responsibility context. You don’t have to make someone else understand you. You don’t have to force a future. You only have to steward the piece that’s been entrusted to you today: a boundary, a hard conversation, patience, forgiveness, or simply getting out of bed and doing the next right thing.

Maybe the simplest reframe is this: life is not merely something happening to you; it’s a life God has entrusted to you. The question that will actually move you is not why did this happen, but what am I going to do with what God has put in front of me?

If that landed with you, the full talk on the You Would Think channel walks through the scriptures Josh mentions and gives the kind of plain, steady coaching he’s practiced in recovery. Consider listening if you want the chaptered examples and the tone that makes the steps feel possible.