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Who's In Control

Disneyland - you drive the car, you have the feeling of being in control, but actually the car is being controlled by a track that determines exactly where you travel. Let’s talk about control. Oswald Chambers, commenting on the apostle Paul, wrote: Paul was not given a message or a doctrine to proclaim, he was brought into a vivid, personal, overmastering relationship to Jesus Christ...He was absolutely Jesus Christ's, he saw nothing else, he lived for nothing else.Who do you belong to?   What or who controls you? Your time? Emotions? Resources? Energy? ..your thought life?  One frequent struggle people face in following Jesus, is deciding who or what is in control of our lives... who or what is the determining factor in our decision-making process.Maybe it is your job, you work hard because you want to please your boss and one day get promoted your career.  So you put all of your time and energy into being your best at work. Or perhaps it is family, the most important things in life to you are your loved ones – spouse, children, parents, friends.  You would do anything for these people and you put them on the top of your list of priorities in life.Although there are many important things in life,  I believe the most significant crossroads in our Christian life, happens that day we begin the journey of surrendering control of "us" to our God. Isn't it interesting how our culture tends to measure our worth by how many people or personal assets we control ...while Jesus measures our worth by how many people we serve and by how much of "us" he controls? Let's look a scripture.James 4:13-1713Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." 14Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that." 16As it is, you boast and brag. All such boasting is evil. 17Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins.We are NOT in control ...BUT GOD IS!  Think of all the plans for tomorrow we make for ourselves and for those we love. Most of us are "take charge" people...seeking to control tomorrow, by being on top of things today. This scripture reminds us that to believe we determine the course of our lives, or the lives of anyone else...is a myth.As Christians we are in process of learning that only God is in control...of everything ...work, family, weather, health, life, our possessions, our future, our achievements. Because He is God, He refuses to be put into a position of being side by side with our plans. God is God! What's more...God has a way of leading us into circumstances that awaken us to this fact of life.Think about it. Our lives are a mist...fragile, vulnerable. How easily all of our plans for tomorrow can be shattered by a shadow on an X-ray, a family member in trouble, a financial loss, a death... transforming into a cry of the soul: God help me! So next time you think you are in control, think again.