Letting Go of the Controls

I’ve always known that this was true, but for some reason, I seem to forget and have to learn it over and over again. Maybe that’s why God continually brings me to the impatient end of myself; that place where there is simply nothing you can do except bellyache or rise above it. Well, this week I’m learning the old lessons all over again.

I spent a week spinning so many plates: two jobs, an active family, and tons of responsibilities. In both jobs I was forced to a place where matters were completely out of control. I was a very uncomfortable place, filled with uncertainty. I started to find myself trying to control the outcome on several fronts, all at the same time. Busy little worker bee. Always busy. I was beginning to panic because I felt overwhelmed by a number of concurrent issues that were out of my control. And then it hit me. Why am I at all concerned with the stuff that is out of my control?

Why do I think that stuff belongs to me in the first place? Why do I try to take on even MORE responsibility for things that I don’t have to be responsible for? When I sat down and wrote out the list of stuff that I actually AM responsible for, I realized that the list was not only manageable, but it was filled with the stuff I really enjoyed doing anyway. All the stressful stuff beyond my control was driving me crazy and it was MY CHOICE to let it drive me crazy. I don’t actually have to feel bad for NOT trying to control the things that are OUT of my control anyway. So guess what; starting today, I’m letting go of the stuff I can’t control and I am giving it all back to God. Not that I expect that God is going to do all the work, there are other people who do control those situations, and they can take the responsibility for them. But I am going to trust that God loves me enough to guide my path as those uncontrollable things take their final shape. I don’t have to try to determine the outcome in some effort to either protect myself or the people I love. God will take care of us.

Ultimately my control issues have been wrapped up in my trust issues. Here’s what I have to trust: God does actually love me enough to take care of me. That’s all there is to it. That’s why I can release control of all these concerns, not because I trust that God exists, not because I trust that He is powerful and that He is concerned with my life. I can let go because I trust that He loves me.

John 16:25-28
“Though I have been speaking figuratively, a time is coming when I will no longer use this kind of language but will tell you plainly about my Father. In that day you will ask in my name. I am not saying that I will ask the Father on your behalf. No, the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.”

I think I feel better already...

Pastor Jim

Visit us at www.PleaseConvinceMe.com

Letting Go of the Controls

Patience is Not My Virtue (Just Ask My Wife)

Recently I’ve been forced to deal with my impatience face to face. I’m at a place right now in my life where everything seems to be at a stand still. We are waiting for a new facility, waiting to begin our series on evolution, waiting to find out if our church will continue to meet on Saturday night or move back to Sunday. I’m afraid all this waiting is bringing out the worst in me…

With just this LITTLE inconvenience (the inconvenience of having to WAIT) I find myself becoming a real jerk. I start to become judgmental and nasty. I find myself assuming the worst in people and trying to place blame on people for stuff that is no one’s fault!! In the end, I become everything that I don’t want to be and the complete hypocrite that I hate. I end up feeling very unspiritual. And I am supposed to be a leader…

It’s at times like these that I feel very small, very stupid, very inadequate. Am I even a Christian at all? Where is the evidence in my life? Over and over again, James challenges us to do more than just say we are Christians. If we are truly saved, there should be some evidence, right? Then, in my most discouraged of moments, when I am feeling the least spiritual, I thank God for Paul’s letter to the Roman believers:

Romans 7:14-25
We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do-this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God-through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Yeah. Thanks be to Jesus. It’s all because of Him, that’s pretty clear. On my own I am so far from perfect, (really so far from even being ‘good’), that I stand condemned if it were not for the mercy of Jesus Christ. Thank God that He sees what Jesus has done for me instead of what I have done to others and to myself. What a fool I can be. What an amazing God we worship.

Pastor Jim

visit us at www.PleaseConvinceMe.com

Patience is Not My Virtue (Just Ask My Wife)