Control
Proverbs 16:9 "A man's heart plans his way, But the LORD directs his steps."
I know I have said this before, but kids sure do teach you a lot about yourself and a lot about God. This morning was a typical morning at our house. Everyone running late and everyone yelling and screaming at each other that they were the cause. It breaks my heart listening to the way my kids talk to each other sometimes. Don't get me wrong, sometimes they are really great to each other. But I also hear a lot of my own impatience and anger reflected in the things they say to each other. I tell myself every day that I need to get up earlier so things don't go so wrong, but that isn't the real problem, is it? The problem is that I don't handle people not doing things my way at my speed the right way. The problem is that I like control. And one thing kids teach you very quickly is that you are not in control. No matter how together a mom seems, she isn't really in control. Kids choose to obey or not. They choose their every action. We can encourage them, teach them, guide them, but we can never control them. They have to choose obedience. And so do we. We have to choose obedience. We have to choose to give up control to the only One who knows best. We have to choose each second of our lives to let Him have the say in what happens. That is so hard, but yet we expect our children to choose to give us control of their lives all the time. I tell my kids all the time that it would be so much easier if everyone would just obey and do what I say without an argument. How true that is for us! It would be so much easier if we would just obey and do what God says without argument! But we want control. What an illusion. We never actually have any control over anything in life. We need to give up the illusion and realize that God is in control and we are better off for letting Him be rather than constantly trying to take control ourselves.
I know I have said this before, but kids sure do teach you a lot about yourself and a lot about God. This morning was a typical morning at our house. Everyone running late and everyone yelling and screaming at each other that they were the cause. It breaks my heart listening to the way my kids talk to each other sometimes. Don't get me wrong, sometimes they are really great to each other. But I also hear a lot of my own impatience and anger reflected in the things they say to each other. I tell myself every day that I need to get up earlier so things don't go so wrong, but that isn't the real problem, is it? The problem is that I don't handle people not doing things my way at my speed the right way. The problem is that I like control. And one thing kids teach you very quickly is that you are not in control. No matter how together a mom seems, she isn't really in control. Kids choose to obey or not. They choose their every action. We can encourage them, teach them, guide them, but we can never control them. They have to choose obedience. And so do we. We have to choose obedience. We have to choose to give up control to the only One who knows best. We have to choose each second of our lives to let Him have the say in what happens. That is so hard, but yet we expect our children to choose to give us control of their lives all the time. I tell my kids all the time that it would be so much easier if everyone would just obey and do what I say without an argument. How true that is for us! It would be so much easier if we would just obey and do what God says without argument! But we want control. What an illusion. We never actually have any control over anything in life. We need to give up the illusion and realize that God is in control and we are better off for letting Him be rather than constantly trying to take control ourselves.
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