Christian 'Control Freak' 101

Proverbs 3:5 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.”

Trusting the Lord with all your heart and not leaning on your own understanding is much harder to do than it is to say…especially for control freaks and most of us ARE control freaks when it comes to our own lives.

The Missing Alarm Clock as shared by Rick Boxx

Cindy shared with a group that God had taken away her alarm clock. She explained that she had a tendency to struggle with control issues. As a CEO responsible for hundreds of employees, Cindy usually was in charge.

Three years ago Cindy believed God challenged her to trust Him and to begin by giving up her alarm clock. God wanted her to trust Him instead. The morning I met Cindy, she had to be up by 3:15 to arrive on time. She was nervous that God would let her down, but at 3:14 God used her dog to awaken her!

Do you trust God with the small and big things? We are guilty of thinking He needs our help. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying we should sit back on our ‘blessed assurance’ and do nothing but when we give something over to the Lord, when we know that it will take divine intervention, we need to step out of His way; He is in the miracle business. Much of what we think we have accomplished by our wits and clever ways has been orchestrated by Him in the first place. If our needs and/or desires are in keeping with His will for our lives, He moves the mountains. If we are straining to move mountains on our own, we are wasting our time.

If you’re anything like me, you would prefer to have His instructions in writing to make sure you were on the right path and not talking yourself into believing your decisions were God ordained. Not wanting to leave any room for error…

There we go again, leaning…on (y)our own understanding. Not much trust going on there.

"in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” Our part is made perfectly clear in this part of the verse, “…in all (y)our ways submit to Him…”. That’s our part, the trusting and submitting. “…and he will make (y)our paths straight.” We must trust and submit and leave the results up to Him. Tall order for control freaks, huh?

 

I DO want straight paths and His hands clear the way for me. No, “trusting and submitting” are not passive activities to keep us busy while He is out making the way clear and straight. Trusting and submitting are what we must do if we want that clear path. It is OUR PART.