Thursday, November 18, 2010

Control

I am a control freak. I like to be in control. Of everything. Or at least everything that affects me and my family. It doesn't matter what the situation is, I want to be in control. And I want to be in control of those things over which I have no control. But the things that I can control, I usually don't control. (Am I starting to sound like Paul here?)

For example, I know that I can control my emotions. I can choose to be happy. I can choose to not let another person cause me to be angry. I can choose to not let other people's emotions or moods affect mine. I can choose to separate myself emotionally from a situation and look at it objectively. However, until today, (and this is going to sound really simple) I never thought about controlling my faith.

I'm doing a Bible study right now and today's lesson was by Gina Rago. Gina is a marketer for Christianity Today International and today's lesson was first published on Kyria's [magazine] blog in August, 2010. Gina shared a personal experience she went through a number of years ago and there were many things happening at that time that she could not control. She writes, "Even when everything around me was swirling out of control,when I chose to trust him, I was on solid ground. Everything may have been shaken, but what would remain was a deeply rooted faith in Christ Jesus and His sovereignty....I couldn't control those circumstances, but I could focus on the things I could control. I could control my faith." To control and increase her faith, she would offer God a sacrifice of praise.

Control my faith. I can control my faith. No matter what is going around me, it's in my ability to control my faith. I can choose to be a doubting Thomas or a person after God's own heart, like David. I can keep my eyes focused on God or I can fret about the circumstance over which I have no control.

Today, and from this day forward, I choose to control my faith.

What will you choose?

2 comments:

quietspirit said...

Edwina:
I believe you have something here. We can control who we are and how we react to things.(Sometimes, I don't always do well with this, myself.)
I have been taught that we can control what we put into our minds and hearts. Likewise, don't we have the power to control what goes out?

Edwina said...

We do have control over what goes out - we can control what we say as much as we can control our emotions and our faith.

Great point, Cecile!

Blessings,
Edwina