Biblical Success - 5 Hurdles in the Path of Our RaceSample

Hurdle #4 - The Desire to be in Control

There are two ways that hurdle #4, The Desire to be in Control, can make our run in the race of life more difficult. 

The first is born into every human and that is the free will that is both God’s gift to us and the source of life’s greatest challenge—our ability to choose. God does not want a family of robots. He could have created us to be mindless slaves, but He didn’t. He chose to give us the ability to choose to be loving servants and members of His family and to live with Him in His Kingdom. 

In His Kingdom there are rules and they are are determined by Him. The Kingdom of God is not a democracy. In the Garden of Eden there was only one rule. Our problem first manifested there. Eve, and then Adam, wanted control and when a false alternative to God’s rule was offered they misused their free will and took it. Satan constantly offers false alternatives to God and His ways. We humans have been struggling with the desire to call our own shots ever since. Our flesh wars against our spirit and the battle rages.

The second way this desire manifests is perhaps less obviously sinful but very problematic in how it effects our ability to deal successfully with the ups and downs of the race track. It is the idea that life can be “fixed.” The idea is a trap. It is an unfounded hope that life can ever be “fixed“; that is, that somehow when we attain something or overcome something or accomplish something that will make life perfect and that Jesus promises to provide it. 

We wrongly believe that there can be one final “thing” that we can conquer or control that will be the “open sesame” to the perfect life or job or marriage or whatever. That’s not real. No one has ever experienced a perfect life except for Jesus. A perfect life was never promised to us and no one can protect themselves from all the negative possibilities that have been the result the first human choice against God’s control. 

For Christ followers the question isn’t will we have problems? Rather, it is how will we react to the problems that will come? Will we trust God or try to solve them in our own strength and resources? Our flesh screams for control! The world shouts “Take it!”  

Each of these hurdles can be cleared only when we recognize that God’s best life for us is in the center of God’s will for us and let go of the wheel and ask Him to steer! 

Are you there or still holding a “white knuckle” grip on the wheel?