I have a confession to make. I’m a bit of a control freak. I love being in control of what’s happening in my life, where I’m going and how things are going to happen. I like to think through every possible scenario before any situation so that I’m prepared for whatever happens. I don’t like it when other people are in control of my situation. There are too many variables. I don’t like it when I don’t know what’s coming next or how to prepare. It can be overwhelming when I’m not in control of my destiny or immediate future.
Brian Tracy, a sales minded motivational speaker, teaches that we feel good about ourselves to the degree to which we are in control of our lives. When we have everything under control, we feel great. When our lives are spinning out of control, we feel horrible. Each one of us have something different that we associate with control. For some, it’s money. When we have it, we feel freedom and in control. When we don’t, we feel helpless and out of control. We tie our self worth to control.
That’s not how God wants us to love though. I’d like to change it up a bit. I think as Christians we feel good about ourselves to the degree to which we allow God to have control in our lives. Each of us choose how much we trust God and how much control He has in our lives. Some of us only trust Him with our problems. Our prayers only go up when life comes down on us. Some of us trust Him with our money. We can’t take it with us so we might as well invest as much as we can in His kingdom so He can multiply it. Some of us trust Him with our whole lives. We look at everything that happens as an opportunity to grow.
When we trust in money, relationships, our parenting skills, our possessions or anything other than God, we are putting ourselves on an emotional roller coaster. We are putting our happiness in things that we can’t control. When we have money, others pay attention to us, the kids are behaving or we have lots of things, we feel great. But when our bank account is empty, others take us for granted, the kids won’t listen and we don’t have much, life gets pretty overwhelming. We feel about an inch tall and our lives seem out of control.
Don’t put your hope, happiness and self esteem in the hands of anyone but God. Ultimately, He’s the one who is in control in a chaotic world. He’s got a plan for your life if you’ll just give Him control to enact it. Your self worth shouldn’t be tied to your bank account, how others treat you, how your kids treat you, how productive you feel or what you have. Your self worth comes from God and when He looks at you, He doesn’t see a mess. He sees His child whom He loves. He sees His precious creation whom He designed to need Him and not to do things on their own.
He wants you to know that He’ll take care of whatever is eating at you today if you’ll just give it to Him. Whatever you’re holding onto today, so that you can feel in control, is what’s making you feel the way you do. The more you give control of your life to God, the better you will feel about your self and your situation. I Peter 5:7 says, “Casting the whole of your care (all your anxieties, all your worries, all your concerns) once and for all on Him, for He cares for you affectionately and cares about you watchfully.” God sees how you’ve allowed other things to control how you feel about yourself and wants you to give control to Him. You’ll feel better about yourself, your situation and your life.
Devotions by Chris Hendrix 