Man: I'm just saying, you've done good work. Maybe, we take a little break...a little time out. We'll come back to it!
God: What you're doing right now is so common. What you're doing right now is called control.
Do you want to control things in your life or can I chisel? Control? Chisel? Control Chisel? Control? Chisel?
Man: CHISEL CHISEL!!! - but can we chisel where I want done???
God: That's called control...
America, the land of control. Remote control. Climate Control. Cruise Control. Government Control. Everything we do is centered around control. As part of our culture, we have become literally obsessed with control. With a remote control, you push a button, and watch an immediate reaction. We are so comfortable with this ideology that we have adapted it into our relationship with God. This concept isn't new. In fact, we find it in the Old Testament, In I Samuel.
King Saul comes onto the scene as one with a humble spirit. But what had appeared to be humility was in fact a guise for inner insecurity and paranoia. These traits usually come as side-effects of a controlling personality. Saul tried to control God's presence. Saul thought he could control the battle, so he waited 7 days to ask for God's presence. After he did not accomplish the goal he imagined, he decided: sacrifices equal God's presence, no sacrifices equal God's absence. With his mechanical, controlling view of God, he attempted to offer the sacrifices on his own time, under his own power, instead of waiting on God's man.
Saul attempted to control the truth. In chapters 14 and 15 God had given him a commandment to eliminate the Amalekites from the face of the earth. Their people, their animals, everything. But as Samuel approaches the king, he hears the bleating of sheep. Saul had decided which people he would spare, which animals he would take, and which riches would be his own. He PARTIALLY obeyed God, which is disobedience! When asked about this act, he altered the truth, and shifted blame in an attempt to control the situation.
This control freak of a king decided not even God could anoint his replacement. He used his position as king to control people! When he realized God's anointing on David, he made an attempt at David's life. He also tried to kill his own son, Jonathan, because of his loyalty to David. In the end, Saul's need for control took his life. When fatally wounded by an enemy archer, he said "no one will kill me, except me." In one final act of desperation and control, Saul took his own life.
The need for control over small things in Saul's life escalated into a need for control over everything, even God. Be careful not to be like Saul. Right now we just try to control our immediate surroundings. We call our controlling nature a "executive personality." We hide it behind the guise of a "drive to succeed." In an attempt to control ourselves, we fall so often on the other side of that narrow fence into sin and manipulation. When you get stressed, STOP! Ask yourself, "who is ultimately in control?" If you're honest with yourself, the answer will be God, and the stress will dissipate. Stop freaking out, and give God control.
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