We’re Out Of Control – But That’s Why God Is!

Word-Of-The-Day: ‘Wealth and honor come from You, God; You are the Ruler of all things. In Your Hands are strength and power to exalt and give strength to all.’ (1 Chronicles 29:12)

God is never reactionary; He only acts as nothing can surprise God.  His perfect plan is not only in motion but to Him already completed with the culmination of events in Revelation 22.  We, unfortunately, live in linear time and though we have the final chapter of the Bible to read and study, it is still foreign to us to think in terms of forgone conclusions before they happen. 

Even with Revelation written and presented before us, we question with four of the five ‘Ws’; who (the Antichrist will be), what (exactly will happen to Christians and the world in defined detail), where (is ‘Babylon’ referencing a modern city, or a city to be built upon the old Babylon ruins?), when (will the Tribulation begin and the Rapture take place?), and the one ‘H’, how (exactly will the Judgements be poured out?). 

Only the fifth ‘W’, ‘why’ (the final judgements due to sin fall upon the world, Satan, and the non-believers before the eternal reign of Christ can be established), is answered for us today.

Our humanistic mindset likes to think we have control in all of our situations.  We expect things to fall into the order we desire; our children will behave and act a certain way, our finances will continue a certain way, and we only want change if it is for the better – and in the way we think the change should go. 

But then we realize that we only have a limited control on these things; a stock market panic causes a dip in our portfolios or has our consumer prices jump, our daughters want to date someone we just aren’t too crazy about, or our sons want to take up a skill that we think they may not be able to make a decent wage to live on (and be forced to stay at home longer than you want).

The fact is we really have little, practically no control over our lives.  We can in ourselves have some steering influences – how we save and invest our monies, what occupational career we choose, and how we try to raise our children, but we can’t control the outside influences that either others or our environment can provide. 

No one has control when illness or injury strikes, nor can we predict when a storm, an earthquake or other natural disaster will rise, where it will strike, and the damage it will cause.  We can only surmise that things could happen, which is why we have insurance policies for our homes, autos and our health, but we only anticipate what we believe should happen – never what will actually happen.

So, if we have no control, who does?  The Good News is this; God is in control!  Since the Holy Spirit is God, the Holy Spirit thus is in control if we allow Him to be in control.  God has given us free will, which is why we have the ability to ‘take the wheel’ and go galivanting off on our own, which we humans do on a routine basis. 

When we seize control away from the Holy Spirit, we end up reacting to life and not responding to life as the Holy Spirit would.   God’s Word in 1 Chronicles 29:12 is true for us, as He has provided us the Holy Spirit to fulfill this; as is Job 1:21 – God’s power to give and take away from us in adherence to His plan.

There is a difference between our control and allowing God to take control of our lives.  When we react, we tend to throw out the first thing that comes to our minds.  This does work well when we react to a baseball flying at our heads, we react by ducking out of the way or throwing our hands up to protect our ‘noggin’.  This may not go well if we hear bad news (or news we don’t want to hear) and we react by panic or anger (or both). 

We hear the news of a young disheveled lad kissing our ‘debutante’ daughter, and we react by tying the young lad to the roof rack of our SUV or locking our daughter in her room only to find out the lad kissed her on the forehead in thanks to her providing tutelage to him in Algebra (and the young lad is the son of a local real-estate magnate).  This is likely going to be a bad reaction, made worse when the police arrest you for kidnapping and his parents sue you as they have lawyers on retainer. 

When we allow God to be in control, and allow the Holy Spirit to properly guide us, we are more likely to respond to issues and not just react to them.  By asking the Holy Spirit for discernment and wisdom, we allow God to control our emotions and allow us to properly think through our issues and provide an appropriate response.  Perhaps we see, in proper context, the young lad’s intentions were innocent and that our daughter is not smitten by him, but proud she could help him out. 

Our response should be to encourage our daughter to continue to help those who need help, using it as a teaching moment to have her use these opportunities to show others the love of Christ.  (It saves a ton of embarrassment, time and legal fees, too.)

It’s easy to react and sometimes we need to react quickly to things life throws at us (like baseballs).  However, it’s better when we can properly respond to life’s issues and we can with Spiritual exercise (prayer, reading the Word, having fellowship, and communicating with the indwelled Spirit) hone our response times down to where our responses are almost as quick as our reactions. 

We must have Faith in the words and promises our Savior gave us, that He will never forsake us and will always be with us, and give us the proper words we need and a path to follow to lead us out from dangers and temptation.