I was talking to a pastor friend of mine this week who said this: “You can control your obedience or the outcome, but you cannot control both.”
I’ve been mulling this over. The word “control” is a tricky one. We certainly want to control things. Wouldn’t it be great if we could keep bad things from happening around us! We could make everything turn out the way we want it to!?!
But if we think about it, we really can’t control very much. Can we even control ourselves?
It’s worth pondering. So many of us do things that we really wish we could stop doing. We call it a lack of discipline or a bad habit, but it points to a bigger issue. We don’t have much power! Which is how many of us ended up finding Jesus. Our lives were spinning out of control and we needed help! We needed power!
This was me. I remember when it finally hit me that self-control is a fruit of the Spirit. For some reason, I understood about love, joy, peace and patience, but ironically forgot that “self-control” is on the list!! Here’s the verse:
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5:22 NIV).
In other words, I can’t come up with enough self-control, I need God to help me!
And he does.
This is great news! As I get close to Jesus and get filled with the Holy Spirit, I learn to have self-control. I grow to have—get this—more power over sin! Whatever you struggle with, there is power to overcome it as you grow closer to Jesus. No one is beyond God’s strength and this is one reason why the Gospel is such good news for the world.
We do what we can do and let God do what God does!
Like my friend was saying, we are still tempted to control the outcomes of things. We still want to make people happy and keep pain away. But this is simply beyond us. On a good day, I’m doing well if I can control myself! And this is our focus. We do what we can do and let God do what God does!
There is a peace in letting go of the world and trusting God to run it. We don’t need to carry that kind of weight on our shoulders. Instead, our task is simple- Go to Jesus! When Jesus was about to leave his disciples, he instructed them to “remain” or “abide” in him, like branches on a vine (John 15). As we do, we get the power and strength that we need for today. We learn to overcome sin and our light shines brighter. And, by the way, we start to bear some amazing fruit!
From Peter's Blog: https://peterbales.substack.com.