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Can you
capture the wind and put it in a box? Can you put reins upon it and bend it to
your will? Can you harness its power and make it blow where you want it to
blow? The answer to those questions is no, the wind cannot to be controlled by
man. The Bible clearly tells us that God controls the winds. They are in His
hands. He tells it which way to blow and what to carry with it. This is true
for the life of man as well, it cannot be controlled, it cannot be harnessed.
Yet, fervently we try to control our days and our nights with reins of
controlled decisions, and fleeting feelings of delight. We say we trust God but
we won’t give up control of our lives to Him. We try to harness the Spirit of
God and bend Him to our will. We have not fully surrendered our will to the Lord
until we have also surrendered the outcome as well.
This
truth hit me pretty hard yesterday as I was praying through some struggles I have
been facing. The truth that I have not fully come to trust in His Holy Name
made me stop and take a hard look at my life. I believe He is Lord. I believe
He is God Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth. I believe that He has a purpose
and a reason for every single moment of my life, but I am not completely ready
to hand the reins over to Him just yet. I am not sure I trust Him with the
outcome just yet.
“Delight
yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit
your way to the Lord; trust Him and He will act.” Psalm 37:4-5 ESV
I am a control
freak, I admit it. I have a knack for managing business, life and others. I am
a CEO of my own company so I daily make controlled decisions expecting certain results.
It is one of the things that makes a successful business- someone who can see
an outcome based on the current choices they have in front of them and knowing
when to act upon them. But there are times when no matter what I do or how hard
I try to harness the situation, the outcome becomes something much different
than I had anticipated. I had no control at all.
Take for
instance my life as a follower of Jesus Christ. I was pretty certain that when
God showed me what my gifts were and He started to use them, I was positive that
I was going to be leading and teaching a women’s bible study within the
confines of a church building. I would be in leadership guiding women through the
Word of God, it was the obvious outcome. But, instead, I am CEO of my own
company, teaching women through a home bible study that has no affiliations
with a church at all. Not the outcome I anticipated when I started out on this
Christian journey.
Even
now, as I look at my life and all that it entails, I realize that none of what
has happened to me has been in my control at all. In fact, every single moment of
my life has been orchestrated by a God who loves me and gave His life for me.
The problem, the struggles that I am facing in my life today all come down to
the idea that I have control when in all reality, I never have had control at
all. The struggle I face daily is a result of me trying to harness God’s plan
over my life and bend it my way instead of trusting the outcome of my life to
Him. We are deceiving ourselves if we think we have any control at all over our
lives.
The Psalmist writes in Psalm 37:4
that if we delight ourselves in the Lord He will give us the desires of our
hearts. This doesn’t mean that we are going to become rich as Solomon or have
an abundance of BMW’s sitting in our driveway’s. It means that we will become
pliable in His hands. The word delight that is used does not only mean joyful
and happy, it means to be content and full of joy to be yielded to someone else’s
plans for your life. It means that we are content to be bent the way God wants
us bent, and not bent on our own way.
The very
things we long for, thirst for, and hunger for, He will give them to us when we
become content to be clay in His mighty hands. Why do I think that the only way
He wants to use the gifts He has given me is by being a leader of a women’s
study within a church? If I am to be clay in His hands, then I must let Him
mold me anyway He chooses. We have to climb out of the box! How the Lord wants
to use our gifts is His choice, not ours. Maybe the reason why we are
struggling in our walks right now, or the reason why we are not seeing our
gifts being used the way we think they should be used, is because God doesn’t
want to use them that way. I think too often we try to make our square ideas of
how our lives should go fit into a round hole God has preordained for us! No
matter how hard we try to make it fit, it just won’t go in.
Delight
yourself in Him. Take comfort and joy in His fullness and be satisfied with the
life He has given you today. Even the struggles, the trials, and the sufferings
are meant for our good and for His glory. Be content to be where you are and He
will mold us and shape us and grant us the desires of our hearts. Be willing to
be molded outside of your box.
But, if
we are to truly delight ourselves in Him we have to also commit our way to Him.
Commit means to roll away from you onto someone else. It means to give up
control; to let go of any authority you think you have and commit it in
complete confidence to someone else. It means to trust someone enough to give
them the reins of your life.
Let go.
Your life is not controlled by you. Even the breath you are breathing right
this very moment is in the hands of the Living God. God has orchestrated your
life to this point. You have made choices and you have made decisions, but the
outcome has always been under His sovereign rule. You may think you have
control, but you only deceive yourself and this deception causes you to stress
and worry about things that only God knows. God alone has all power and
authority. Committing your way to Him means that you surrender the outcome of
your life to Him. You choose to be faithful in what He has called you to do today,
and you trust that He has the rest of your life in complete control. If we
would only give up the reins of our lives to Him, oh what glorious blessings He
would bring our way!
Commit
your way to the Lord, trust Him; He only has the best of the best planned for
you. Surrender the reins of your life to Him and He will blow your socks off, I
guarantee it! Let go my friend, and let God do what God does best! Our lives
are not our own, they never have been. I have been His since the day He hung
upon that cross at Calvary. I have been His since before the world began. Every
single moment of my life has been purposed, planned and blessed by the God and
Father of all mankind. If we say we trust Him, then we must let go of the reins
and stop fighting Him.
We must
break down the walls of our boxes and let Him take us to places we never
dreamed of but have always desired to go in our hearts. He wants to bless us.
He wants to give us a future and a hope. Your desires, your greatest longings
will be fulfilled in ways you never thought possible if you would only let go
of the reins you are holding so tightly. Who knows what tomorrow brings? God
knows and He wants to show you great and mighty things. Commit your ways to Him
and He will bring all the good and all the glory He has promised you to pass.
Let go my friend, and let God. Amen?
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