Let me chat with those of you who are control freaks. I’m a control freak, a perfectionist. I’m a Type A personality. I want to control everything! It is human nature to struggle with those things we can’t control. But I want to remind you of something. You are not in control, and that can stress you out until the day Jesus returns. Or, I think you can get a little bit of perspective, so let me take a little pressure off of us. If you think that one misstep, one mistake, one failure can frustrate the providential plan of Almighty God, then your God is way too small.
I’m amazed at my ability to put myself on par with God and think that somehow, I can frustrate His omnipotent plan. God is bigger than that. Proverbs 16:9: In his heart a man plans his course but God orders his footsteps. Solomon’s words have a recalibrating effect physiologically don’t they? When I’m in the middle of that impossible struggle, what I try to do is just remind myself that God is ordering my footsteps and no matter how difficult it gets, no matter how frustrating, disorienting, I need to remind myself that God is sovereign. And that gives me that sense of destiny about my life.
Paul, in Acts 28, was shipwrecked off the island of Malta. What a detour to his mission? What could God have possibly had in mind? Now, how did Paul end up on the island of Malta? I want to remind you, it wasn’t the navigational skills of the ship’s captain, it wasn’t the sailing skills of the crew. They landed on Malta because of something totally out of their control: the wind factor. Acts 27:14-15 “…a wind of hurricane force, called the ‘northeaster,’ swept down from the island. The ship was caught by the storm and could not head into the wind; so we gave way to it and were driven along.” Headwinds, gale force winds, the winds seemed to be taking them off course, but it’s the wind factor that gets Paul right where God wants him to go.
Disasters in life are going to happen beyond your control. You might lose a job, someone might break up with you, economic issues, bad diagnosis, but listen, things are going to happen that you can’t control but I want to remind you of Christ’s words in John 3:8. Jesus said this: The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear it’s sound but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit. In other words, if you are born of the Spirit, if you put your faith in Christ, the Spirit of God takes up residence in your life, you begin that incredible journey with God, and what happens is this—you aren’t going to know where you are going or what is coming most of the time, and that’s a good thing! It’s right where God wants you to be.
Jesus likened the workings of the Holy Spirit to the wind. Sometimes it is a light wind from the South. Oh, we love it when it is the wind at our backs. Sometimes it is gale force winds in our face, and all I know is this—resisting the Holy Spirit is like spitting into the wind. So what you need to do is you need to begin to cultivate that moment-by-moment sensitivity to the Spirit of God. In fact, you need to get to the point in your life where you trust His promptings more than you trust your plans. You get to that point where you embrace the uncontrollable, unpredictable working of the Holy Spirit in your life. And as I look back at my own map of my own spiritual journey, I can honestly say that I’m grateful for the hard times. God was in the storm.
From www.thetheaterchurch.com. Used by permission of Heather Zempel.
From “Cage of Failure” Wild Goose Chase www.theaterchurch.com
