Not the remote of control

I love the remote control. I have so many remote controls in my house I’m not sure they all go to something. And of course now you can buy a universal remote to control everything that needs to be controlled – TV, DVD, Theater, Stereo (even car stereos), lights, garage door openers, car door locks, home security systems, and on and on. Remotes give us control and don’t we all love control? I was lying in bed one night, having difficult falling to sleep and this thought came to mind – what is control? Con? Well the first thought that came to mind was a criminal, like we say ‘he was an ex-con.’ Trol? Well I’ve heard a troll which in my mind is a short, ugly mythological creature that hides under bridges or in a cave. So as I put those two thoughts together I came up with my own definition of ‘control’: ‘Control is a fantasy thought in which a person attempts to steal away a certain situation to only come up short.’ Control is a dream and according to the Bible, a bad dream. Jesus never said we are called to lose our lives. The Bible only gives certain things in which we are to control and that is our tongue, thoughts, eyes and heart - yet these things seem to be the least of things that we attempt to control. We allow our tongue to speak whatever garbage, our eyes to gaze on this and that like the world was a museum to be bought – causing our minds to commit adultery and our hearts to covet. And all of these things filter into our hearts, which is called the wellspring of life which is the one thing, above all else, that we are called to guard (Prov. 4:23). I believe we stop controlling these things in our lives, or for some even stop attempting to control, because we are trying to control all of the other things in our life that we are supposed to give up to God: our dreams, money, time, love, family, agendas, opinions, and future plans. These are all things we like to control, or like to believe we have control of, but control is just a fantasy. I find it interesting that the word ‘remote’ actually means ‘far apart, far off, faint’ and that is what happens when we try to control the things of our life like we had a remote control for it – we become ‘far apart and far off’ from God. So I am proud to say I give up my remote of control, the faint hope of control that my sinful heart attempts to tell me I have. Faith gives up control. Jesus calls for His followers to give up control. So will you join me in dropping our remotes of control into the hands of God so He can control our lives. I know this is going to be hard but just read God’s promise in Jeremiah 29:11, after all, I’m sure your ‘pause’ button on your remote gave out a long time ago too.