Control: Some people think they have it, and most people want it. Well, forget about it. You never had it and you never will. The weather this past week humbled us all and reminded us how small we are. As I watched tree limbs crash in the woods behind our house, as I saw people slip and slide on the roadways, as I continued to get reports of people losing their electricity, as I called a friend each day who is sitting up at the hospital with his wife waiting for a better day for her and getting no answers from the doctors – I kept thinking about how powerless we all really are in this world.
We have created for ourselves straw houses that we believe are made of bricks. We have a false security, a carefully constructed façade. When it comes to sickness and death and tragedy, we pretend we are removed from it, that it will never happen to us. When it comes to future plans we make them as if nothing is going to change our ability to make them realities. When it comes to spiritual matters we put them on the shelf, falsely claiming that our sins aren’t that bad, that they don’t need to be dealt with immediately, and even if they are ruining our lives and our eternity we still will have plenty of time to deal with them later.
Wake up, people! God is in control! “He sends out His command to the earth; His word runs very swiftly. He gives snow like wool; He scatters the frost like ashes; He casts out His ice like morsels; Who can stand before His cold?” (Psalm 147:15-17). This weather event was nothing to Jehovah. As we slept and wondered if trees would fall on our homes, the majority of the rest of the world wasn’t even aware of any danger. And then there is our God, who somewhere through the vast expanse of space exists in His heavenly home, having created the entire universe with the breath of His mouth.
And yet it is God who cares the most. It is God who has visited us in our time of need. It is God who looks down from heaven and considers our ways and our thoughts and the meditations of our hearts. And the ironic part is that He is wondering when we will ever stop trying to have control and let Him be in charge when there has never even been one second in time when He wasn’t on the throne.
And so I will stand at the invitation song again this Sunday, if Sunday ever comes. And I will look out to several hundred people who either have the illusion that they are in control, or are simply just unwilling to stop trying to have control. This must be the case. Otherwise we would have revival. Otherwise we would have restoration. Otherwise we would have responses. Otherwise we would have repentance and baptism for the remission of sins.
It is time that we stop pretending. “For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God…” (1 Peter 4:17).
“Blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust…” – (Psalm 40:4).
“Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The Lord, the Lord himself, is my strength and my defense; he has become my salvation.” – (Isaiah 12:2).
