In My Opinion
By Lynn Paris

God and Christianity 101-3
Who’s In Control

When I wrote that God is in control and you’re not, it didn’t mean for one minute that God is some type of puppet-master controlling your every movement. Puppets don’t have minds, or feelings, and they don’t have to make choices. You, on the other hand, were created in God’s image, “fearfully and wonderfully made,” as the psalmist says, and God created you with free will. That means that you have the ability and the right to make up your own mind about everything, to make your own choices, both good and bad. And you experience feelings—like joy, grief, confusion, doubt, anxiety, insecurity, fear, confidence, love, and compassion—sometimes all in one day.

So what does God being in control mean? First, I guess, it’s important to know who God is. The problem is that none of us have seen God. Even if we accept that we’ve seen proof of Him in the wonders of the universe He created, or in the love of our children, or in a moment of transcendent joy when listening to a piece of music, we haven’t actually seen Him. The closest we can come to knowing Him is through the Bible, where His character is constantly revealed. The first thing we realize is that there’s no way to describe or understand Him in human terms; God is immeasurably more powerful, more omniscient, more loving, more just, more forgiving than we can begin to imagine; it’s just not possible to conceive of how awesome God is, or how deep, how wide, how long, how high is His love for us.

The second thing we come to realize is that from the beginning, God was always in control, but that only those who had faith in Him, who entrusted their lives to Him, could tap into that power. God always knew His plan, and always stuck to His plan. And He continues to stick to His plan even today, although many may not be aware of that.

I believe that God has a plan for my life, and I can choose, by my own free will, the path I’ll take in order that His plan is fulfilled. When I choose the path that puts me in relationship with Him, trusting in His love for me and His will for me, it’s always the better path. When I distance myself from Him and think I can handle this one by myself, I invariably realize I’ve chosen the wrong path, the path that denies me the benefit of the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling within me.

Of course, the truth is that the right path is NOT always easy. Sometimes prayers seem to get answered immediately, and we are in awe of the power of prayer. We Christians also have a rather convenient excuse for when our prayers seem to go unanswered; it wasn’t God’s timing. But the fact is, as convenient as that seems to the non-believer, I’ve experienced enough of those deferred responses to prayer to know in retrospect that the old adage is true; be careful what you pray for. I’ve also come to accept that if what I pray for is not the way in which God wants to fulfill His purpose in my life, then I’d better start thinking right away about what He wants me to learn from a particular unanswered prayer, or a time of struggle or testing. Usually it’s abundantly clear; He’s working on my areas of weakness: my lack of patience, my desire to be in control, my reluctance to forgive, my tendency to doubt. In the end, those AHA moments are often worth more than the answered prayer in terms of my personal growth and spiritual maturity.

There are many who, upon learning that God is in control, immediately decide that all they have to do is sit back and wait for things to happen. After all, they’ve put their trust in the Lord; shouldn’t that be enough? It isn’t. God really dislikes lazy people, or people who assume that good stuff will come their way just because they profess to love Him. The thing is, sitting back and waiting isn’t really loving God, because it isn’t following His call to action, to service, to obedience, and because it makes a mockery of the free will He gave us. The reality is that it’s a lot more like the well-known serenity prayer: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”

There are millions of things we can indeed change, including our actions, our choices, our minds. And there are things we can change in our homes, our communities, our country and our world. Sometimes all it takes is a decision, and sometimes it requires tremendous courage, but we CAN change things. The other day I was praying, and found myself, for the fifth day in a row, asking God for discipline, stamina, patience, and wisdom. I happen to be on hiatus between a job I recently completed and a new job I’ve accepted, and I’ve discovered, once again, that I really lack discipline. I’m not nearly as self-motivated as I’d like to be, and I depend far too much on the project schedule, the deadline, to get work accomplished.

So, I was asking for His help. But then it occurred to me that although I might need it in the areas of stamina and wisdom, there was no reason to ask God to help me with things that are within my control, like discipline and patience. Those are traits I can work on myself, have to work on myself because I have the God-given ability to do that. Do I daydream away half the morning or do I go immediately to my TO DO list and tackle it? Do I watch Dr. Phil or continue with my research? Do I flip through a magazine or write a column? Those are just choices, and I can make those choices on my own. What I might need from God—assuming I’ve done my part by getting enough sleep, eating healthy foods etc.— is the stamina to keep on going once I’ve made the disciplined choices. And I trust that when I’ve demonstrated my ability to discern the difference between the things I can and cannot change, that He just might provide me with that additional stamina.

For me, personally, it helps to know that there is someone infinitely wiser and more powerful than I am who’s in control. Although there are innumerable parts of His plan I don’t pretend to understand, I believe there will come a day when they will all make perfect sense. That goes back to the first part of the serenity prayer; grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. Serenity is God’s peace, the “peace that transcends all understanding,” and that’s when it’s good to know that you can put those things in God’s hands, give them to God and trust that He will work all things out for your ultimate good, no matter what His timing or purpose. It’s in that peace of knowing that God is in control that real faith is tested, and real trust is formed.

For those out there who don’t choose to believe in God, and prefer to believe in yourselves and your ability to control things, all I can do is ask; how’s that been working for you?

Send me your opinions at LParis@netlistings.com