Got Control?





“Control is an illusion, you infantile egomaniac. Nobody knows what's gonna happen next: not on a freeway, not in an airplane, not inside our own bodies and certainly not on a racetrack with 40 other infantile egomaniacs.” -from the movie Days of Thunder

 
 
 
Today, I got up, went for a walk, had breakfast, made coffee, and wrote this post. By this evening……..who knows? Will I have dinner with my family? Will there be a tornado? Will my husband still have a job at the end of the day?

Most days I think I know the answers to those questions.

I really don’t.

Truth is, we have no idea what each day will bring.
Dr. Chase, aka Nicole Kidman is right.
Control is an illusion.

I think Nicole Kidman’s character easily accepts this because she is a doctor. Her world is filled with routine surgeries turning tragic in an instant, or the donor found too late, and accident damage too severe.

Normal people like you, me and Tom Cruise/Cole Trickle?
We live with the illusion of control.
We think because we get out of bed every day and make our own coffee, drive our own cars, we have some sort of control over our lives.

Sure we know accidents, sickness and tragedy happen. Just turn on the news.

But control of our lives? How many times have you said “I’ve got this.” Or “Don’t worry, I got it all under control.” Ever wonder what God does when he hears those words? People think he takes that very moment to make something happen that we weren’t expecting just to prove us wrong. It doesn’t work that way.
Oh, I believe He gets a good chuckle when we say “I’ve got this,” but He doesn’t take that moment to get revenge on us for it.

God isn’t sitting up there watching on his big screen and laughing at all the silly things we are doing, only to wave his hand and either make things turn our good or bad. He has had a plan for our life all along and no matter what we do nothing is going to stop or change it.

We are the ones waving our free will around making choices that will ultimately affect which direction we are currently going. Sometimes those choices will take us along another route for a while and it just takes longer to get where we are going.

The longer it takes for us to get where we belong, the more hardship, stress and frustration we will feel.

Psalm 103:19 (NASB) The LORD has established His throne in the heavens, And His sovereignty rules over all.

Everything in this world is His, and He controls it all.
None of us know what will happen next any given day. He alone has that knowledge.

Why not just relinquish any thoughts of being in real control of your life?

Just accept that He knows what’s best and just follow along for the ride.

Ahhh, but that’s problem isn’t it?
We don’t want to be led along in the passenger seat.
We want to drive the car.
We want to feel the wheel in our hands, press the gas, see the dust in the rearview.
With someone else driving, we can’t be sure where we are going, where we will end up, or what kind of shape we will be in when we get there.

Cole Trickle lost control of his car and almost died. He's not even sure he can get back in a race car again.
That's the reality of a car accident.

What happens if we let go of the wheel of our lives and give it over to God? God, who we can't see, we can't tell what to do, and who doesn't tell us where we are going or what's going to happen?

Frightening is it?

With God in the driver’s seat we don't have to worry or fear. We can be assured that no matter where we end up, it is always right where we should be. His plan for our lives is far better than the illusion we have created of what we think we should be doing. He always has our best interest at heart.

So leave the illusion, move over and let Him have the wheel.
Because he is really the only one who knows where we are going.
Only he knows what is going to happen next.

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